josefalbers

Table of ContentsTimelineBauhaus PeriodTeaching

InfluenceWork

Marriage

1925

19761913-1915

1888 1916-1919

1920

1918

19221923

1949- 1976

1933-1949

1950 1963Trained as art teacher at konigliche kainstschule in Berlin

Joined Bauhaus staff as craft master at glass workshop with Paul Klee as form master

Born in Bottrop GermanySon of craftsmen

Worked as printmaker Essen

First public comission rosa mystica ora pronobis at church in Essen

Enrolled as student at the Bauhaus in Johannes Itten’s preliminary course

Moved to CT to become head of design department at Yale

Asked to teach preliminary course at the Dessau Bauhaus

Promoted to professor position and marries Anni Albers

invited to be head of art program at black mountain college in north carolina

Continued to write and paint until his death in New Haven, Connecticut

Starts famous series homage to the square and works on it until his death

Published Interaction of Color, his book on color theory

BauhausPeriodAlbers enrolled at the Bauhaus in 1920He was in the preliminary course taught by Johannes Itten

During his time at the Bauhaus Albers produced a lot of work in furniture design and glass

Josef Albers, Stacking tables 1927 ash veneer, black laquer, painted glass

Josef Albers, Writing desk 1927 ash veneer, black lacquer, painted glass

Josef AlbersGitterbild, 1921Glass, metal, and wire

Josef Albers Scherbe ins Gitterbild, 1921 glass, wire, and sheet metal

Josef Albers Fabrik, 1925 sandblasted flashed glass with black paint

Josef Albers Frontal, 1927 sandblasted flashed glass with black paint

Albers as a teacher

In 1923 he was appointed by Walter Gropius to teach a preliminary course at the bauhaus. He took over the glass workshop and taught principles of handicrafts

He was teaching at the Bauhaus with artists including Oskar Schlemmer, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. Klee was the form master who taught the formal aspects in the glass workshops where Albers was the crafts master and taught the technical aspects

He believed teaching art was not a matter of imparting rules, styles, or techniques, but of leading students to a greater awareness of what they are seeing. For him the building block of art education was the development of capacity to see more accurately by exploring the visual field through its key elements

In 1933 after the Bauhaus closed due to Nazi pressureAlbers was invited to become head of the art program at Black Mountain college in North CarolinaHe gave courses in drawing and painting

His lessons were comprised of free hand line exercises where students discovered the way that lines and shapes formed relationships, rhythms and tensions

He taught students how to see what was previously unseenSpace is never empty, hollows and voids were as important as the solids

In his curriculum he place emphasis on the centrality of art to everyday life, and its integrative and collaborative approach to art-making

Albers brought the theories and teaching methods of the Bauhaus to Black Mountain, but he was also influenced by the progressive educational philosophy of American philosopher John Dewey, with its emphasis on experimentation and direct experience as central to the learning experience

In 1949 Albers left Black Mountain College to serve as the chairman of the Design Department at Yale University from 1950 to 1958 where he taught Richard Anuszkiewicz and Eva Hesse. While lecturing at Yale, Albers began his most famous body of work, the series Homage to the Square, an exercise on the optical effects of color within the confines of a uniform square shape

TheMarriage

Josef met Anni Fleischmann shortly after her arrival at the Weimar Bauhaus in 1922. She was a student at the weaving workshop where she experimented with new materials for weaving. They married in Berlin in 1925 and were eleven years apart.

Eventually, they moved to one of the masters’ houses designed by Gropius and lived there until 1933, when Josef Albers was asked to make the visual arts curriculum for Black Mountain College in North Carolina.They were a very happy couple and lived out their lives together fostering each other’s creativity and devoted to their philosophy that art was central to human existence

Albers’ interest in color was sparked at the Bauhaus by Paul Klee’s introductory courses

In choosing the square, Albers displayed heavy influence from Kasimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian, both of whom had explored the form’s spiritual and formal possibilities in their own work

Influence

Piet Mondrian Composition with large red plane, yellow, black, grey and blue, 1921

Kasimir MalevichRed Square, 1915

Albers is well known for his series Homage to the Square which he began in 1949 and continued until his death in 1976.This work exemplifies his exploration of the relativity of human perception and the range of psychological effects that colors can produce.

Work

Although he later became well-known for his Homage to the square seriesHis body of work included various mediums such aspainting, furniture design, printmaking, glass, and drawing

Josef Albers Homage to the square, 1949-1976This is a compilation of various canvases from the series

Josef Albers study for homage to the square 1948

Josef Albers study for Mantic, 1940

Josef Albers Sandgrube I, 1916Linoleum cut

Josef Albers Self-Portrait, 1917Transfer lithograph

Josef Albers Oper/Opera, 1933 woodcut

Josef Allbers High Up, 1948 woodcut

Josef Albers Two Supraportas, 1972 stainless steel

Josef Albers, Multiplex 8 1947Wood engraving

Josef Albers, Window 1923 colored glass, Bauhaus in Weimar

Josef Albers Reds + Ochre with Pink, 1948 oil on masonite

Josef Albers Variant/Adobe, 1948 oil on masonite