Josef Albers
1888 - 1976
Josef Albers was a German artist, mathematician and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential art education programs of the 20th century.
Albers was born in Bottrop, Westphalia (Germany). He studied art in Berlin, Essen, and Munich before enrolling as a student at the prestigious Weimar Bauhaus in 1920.
nbsp; He began teaching in the preliminary course of the Department of Design in 1922, and was promoted to Professor in 1925, the year the Bauhaus moved to Dessau.
With the closure of the Bauhaus under Nazi pressure in 1933, Albers emigrated to the United States and joined the faculty of Black Mountain College, North Carolina, where he ran the painting program until 1949. At Black Mountain his students included Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Motherwell, Ray Johnson and Susan Weil.
nbsp; In 1950 Albers left Black Mountain to head the Department of Design at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut until he retired from teaching in 1958. Albers was painting and writing in New Haven until his death in 1976. Accomplished as a designer, photographer, typographer, printmaker and poet, Albers is best remembered for his work as an abstract painter and theorist.
He favored a much disciplined approach to composition. Most famous of all are the hundreds of paintings and prints that make up the series Homage to the Square. Albers' theories on art and education were formative for the next generation of artists. His own paintings form the foundation of both hard-edge abstraction and Op art.
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