Josef Albers

Josef Albers (1888-1976) was a German-American painter, printmaker, teacher, philosopher, typographer and photographer. Albers was a great multi-talented artist, and he has had an enormous influence on modern design. His artistical emphasis was on simple geometrical compositions and fundamentalism, which probably arose from his involvement and teaching at the Bauhaus, school of art in Germany. His work definitely shows that the Bauhaus was not strictly about architecture.

Albers received his formal education Berlin, Essen, Munich and also at the Bauhaus in Weimar. Later in life he taught advanced classes in printmaking, furniture design etc. at the Bauhaus in Dessau. Albers also played a major part in putting together the basic course in design that made the Bauhaus so famous.

In 1923 Albers and his wife moved to North Carolina to teach at the Black Mountain College. In 1950 he moved on to Yale University where he became the Dean of the School of Architecture and Design.

Albers artwork, paintings and graphic designs, became famous after he had moved to the U.S. His most famous paintings belong to a series called "Homage to the Square," that he started painting in 1947. The series consists of three paintings with the same composition (three squares in each painting). The squares however have different colors. Also as early as 1913 he had finished his first abstract painting.

Many of Albers paintings etc. can still be viewed in famous museums here in the U.S. (like the Metropolitan museum of Art in New York).

Additional information