Josef Albers
Content
Josef Albers
Josef Albers (/ˈælbərz, ˈɑːl-/; German: [ˈalbɐs]; March
19, 1888 – March 25, 1976)[1] was a German-born
American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some
of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the twentieth century.
arranged for Albers to be offered a job as head of a new
art school, Black Mountain College, in North Carolina.[5]
In November 1933, he joined the faculty of the college
where he was the head of the painting program until 1949.
At Black Mountain, his students included Ray Johnson,
Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, and Susan Weil. He
also invited important American artists such as Willem
de Kooning, to teach in the summer seminar. Weil remarked that, as a teacher, Albers was “his own academy”
1 Life and work
and she said that Albers claimed that “when you’re in
school, you’re not an artist, you’re a student”, although he
Albers was born into a Roman Catholic family of was very supportive of self-expression when one became
craftsmen in Bottrop, Westphalia, Germany.[2] He an artist and began her or his journey.[6] Albers produced
worked from 1908 to 1913 as a schoolteacher in his home many woodcuts and leaf studies at this time.
town. Albers trained as an art teacher at Königliche Kunstschule in Berlin, Germany, from 1913 to 1915. From
1916 to 1919 he began his work as a printmaker at the
Kunstgewerbschule in Essen. In 1918 he received his first
public commission, Rosa mystica ora pro nobis, a stainedglass window for a church in Essen.[2] In 1919 he went to
Munich, Germany, to study at the Königliche Bayerische
Akademie der Bildenden Kunst, where he was a pupil of
Max Doerner and Franz Stuck.[3]
Albers enrolled as a student in the preliminary course
(Vorkurs) of Johannes Itten at the Weimar Bauhaus in
1920. Although Albers had studied painting, it was as
a maker of stained glass that he joined the faculty of
the Bauhaus in 1922, approaching his chosen medium
as a component of architecture and as a stand-alone art
form.[4] The director and founder of the Bauhaus, Walter
Gropius, asked him in 1923 to teach in the preliminary
course ‘Werklehre' of the department of design to introduce newcomers to the principles of handicrafts, because
Albers came from that background and had appropriate
practice and knowledge.
In 1925, Albers was promoted to professor, the year the
Bauhaus moved to Dessau. At this time, he married Anni
Albers (née Fleischmann) who was a student there. His
work in Dessau included designing furniture and working
with glass. As a younger art teacher, he was teaching at
the Bauhaus among artists who included Oskar Schlemmer, Wassily Kandinsky, and Paul Klee. The so-called
form master, Klee taught the formal aspects in the glass
workshops where Albers was the crafts master; they cooperated for several years.
Josef Albers, Proto-Form (B), oil on fiberboard, 1938,
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
In 1950, Albers left Black Mountain to head the department of design at Yale University in New Haven,
Connecticut. While at Yale, Albers worked to expand
the nascent graphic design program (then called "graphic
arts"), hiring designers Alvin Eisenman, Herbert Matter,
and Alvin Lustig.[7] Albers worked at Yale until he retired
With the closure of the Bauhaus under Nazi pressure in from teaching in 1958. At Yale, Richard Anuszkiewicz,
[8][9]
1933 the artists dispersed, most leaving the country. Al- Eva Hesse, Neil Welliver, and Jane Davis Doggett
bers emigrated to the United States. The architect Philip were notable students.
Johnson, then a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, In 1962, as a fellow at Yale, he received a grant from
1
2
2 STYLE AND INFLUENCES
the Graham Foundation for an exhibit and lecture on his
work. Albers also collaborated with Yale professor and
architect King-lui Wu in creating decorative designs for
some of Wu’s projects. Among these were distinctive
geometric fireplaces for the Rouse (1954) and DuPont
(1959) houses, the façade of Manuscript Society, one of
Yale’s secret senior groups (1962), and a design for the
Mt. Bethel Baptist Church (1973). Also, at this time he
worked on his structural constellation pieces.
In 1963, he published Interaction of Color which presented his theory that colors were governed by an internal
and deceptive logic. The very rare first edition has a limited printing of only 2,000 copies and contained 150 silk
screen plates. This work has been republished since and
is now even available as a cell phone app. Also during this
time, he created the abstract album covers of band leader
Enoch Light's Command LP records. His album cover
for Terry Snyder and the All Stars 1959 album, Persuasive Percussion, shows a tightly packed grid or lattice of
small black disks from which a few wander up and out as
if stray molecules of some light gas.[10] He was elected a
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
in 1973.[11] Albers continued to paint and write, staying
in New Haven with his wife, textile artist, Anni Albers,
until his death in 1976.
1.1
Homage to the Square
he used a palette knife with oil colors and often recorded
the colors he used on the back of his works. Each painting consists of either three or four squares of solid planes
of color nested within one another, in one of four different arrangements and in square formats ranging from
406×406 mm to 1.22×1.22 m.[12]
1.2 Murals
In 1959, a gold-leaf mural by Albers, Two Structural Constellations was engraved in the lobby of the Corning Glass
Building in Manhattan. For the entrance of the Time &
Life Building lobby, he created Two Portals (1961), a 42feet by 14-feet mural of alternating glass bands in white
and brown that recede into two bronze centers to create
an illusion of depth.[13] In the 1960s Walter Gropius, who
was designing the Pan Am Building with Emery Roth
& Sons and Pietro Belluschi, commissioned Albers to
make a mural. The artist reworked City, a sandblasted
glass construction that he had designed in 1929 at the
Bauhaus, and renamed it Manhattan. The giant abstract
mural of black, white, and red strips arranged in interwoven columns stood 28-feet high and 55-feet wide and
was installed in the lobby of the building; it was removed
during a lobby redesign in c. 2000. Before his death in
1976 Albers left exact specifications of the work so it
could easily be replicated.[14] In 1967, his painted mural Growth (1965) as well as Loggia Wall (1965), a brick
relief, were installed on the campus of the Rochester Institute of Technology. Other architectural works include
Gemini (1972), a stainless steel relief for the Grand Avenue National Bank lobby in Kansas City, Missouri, and
Reclining Figure (1972), a mosaic mural for the Celanese
Building in Manhattan destroyed in 1980. At the invitation of a former student, the architect Harry Seidler,
Albers designed the mural Wrestling (1976) for Seidler’s
Mutual Life Center in Sydney, Australia.
2 Style and influences
Josef Albers, Homage to the Square, 1965
He was known to meticulously list the specific manufacturer’s colours and varnishes he used on the back
of his works, as if the colours were catalogued components of an optical experiment.[15] His work represents a transition between traditional European art and
the new American art.[16] It incorporated European influences from the Constructivists and the Bauhaus movement, and its intensity and smallness of scale were typically European,[16] but his influence fell heavily on American artists of the late 1950s and the 1960s.[16] "Hardedge" abstract painters drew on his use of patterns and
intense colors,[17] while Op artists and conceptual artists
further explored his interest in perception.[16]
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
very disciplined approach to composition. Most famous
of all are the hundreds of paintings and prints that make
up the series, Homage to the Square. In this rigorous series, begun in 1949, Albers explored chromatic interac- In an article about the artist, published in 1950, Elaine de
tions with nested squares. Usually painting on Masonite, Kooning concluded that however impersonal his paintings
3
might at first appear, not one of them “could have been
painted by any one but Josef Albers himself.”[2] Although
their relationship was often tense, and sometimes, even
combative, Robert Rauschenberg later identified Albers
as his most important teacher.[18]
3
Exhibitions
In 1936, Albers was given his first solo show in Manhattan at J. B. Neumann’s New Art Circle.[19][20] He participated in documenta I (1955) and documenta IV (1968)
in Kassel. A major Albers exhibition, organized by the
Museum of Modern Art, traveled in South America,
Mexico, and the United States from 1965 to 1967.[19] In
1971 he was the first living artist to be given a solo show
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan.[12] In
2010, a show of 80 oil works on paper, many never exhibited before, was mounted by the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, later travelling to other venues, including
Centre Pompidou in Paris, and The Morgan Library &
Museum in Manhattan. In 2014, an exhibition at the Elliott Museum in Stuart, FL called “Albers and Heirs” featured the work of Albers, Neil Welliver, and Jane Davis
Doggett.[8][9]
4
Legacy
The Josef Albers papers, documents from 1929 to 1970,
were donated by the artist to the Smithsonian Institution's
Archives of American Art in 1969 and 1970. In 1971
(nearly five years before his death), Albers founded the
Josef and Anni Albers Foundation,[21] a nonprofit organization he hoped would further “the revelation and evocation of vision through art.” Today, this organization not
only serves as the office for the estates of both Josef Albers and his wife Anni Albers, but also supports exhibitions and publications focused on the works of both
Albers. The official foundation building is located in
Bethany, Connecticut, and “includes a central research
and archival storage center to accommodate the Foundation’s art collections, library and archives, and offices, as
well as residence studios for visiting artists.”[22]
The U.S. copyright representative for the Josef and Anni
Albers Foundation is the Artists Rights Society.[23] The
executive director of the foundation is Nicholas Fox Weber, an author of fourteen books.[24] Later the foundation was instrumental in having four fakes from Italy, represented as the work of Albers and on sale in auction
houses and galleries in France and Germany, seized by
the police.[2]
In 1997, one year after the auction house, Sotheby’s, had
bought the Andre Emmerich Gallery, the Josef and Anni
Albers Foundation, the main beneficiary of the estates
of both artists, did not renew its three-year contract with
the gallery.[25] Currently, the foundation is represented by
The Pace Gallery in New York, Waddington Custot Galleries in London, and the Alan Cristea Gallery in London, and now, a large part of his estate is held by the
Josef Albers Museum in Bottrop, Germany, where he was
born.[26]
5 Value on the art market
Several paintings in his series “Homage to the Square”
have outsold their estimates. Homage to the Square:
Joy (1964) sold for $1.5 million, nearly double its estimate, during a 2007 sale at Sotheby’s.[27] More recently,
“Study for Homage to the Square,R-III E.B.” also sold for
around twice the estimated $545,000-$700,000, eventually reaching $1.22 million at auction.[28]
6 See also
• Architype Albers (large typeface based on Albers 1927–1931 experimentation with geometrically constructed stencil types for posters and signs)
• Bauhaus
6.1 Noted students of Albers
• Richard Anuszkiewicz (painter)
• Ruth Asawa (sculptor)
• John Day (painter)
• Norman Carlberg (sculptor)
• Robert Engman (sculptor)
• Erwin Hauer (sculptor)
• Gerald Garston (painter)
• Eva Hesse (sculptor)
• Robert Rauschenberg (painter and sculptor)
• Harry Seidler (architect)
• Robert Slutzky (1929-2005) painter, teacher of
painting and architecture, co-author, with Colin
Rowe, of Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal,
Parts I and II
• Julian Stanczak (painter)
• Cora Kelley Ward (painter)
• Neil Welliver (painter)
• Jane Davis Doggett (graphic artist and designer of
airport wayfinding signage systems)
4
8 FURTHER READING
• Varujan Boghosian (collage artist and sculptor)
• Irving Petlin (painter)
7
References
[19] Josef Albers Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New
York.
[20] J.B. Neumann Papers in The Museum of Modern Art
Archives
[21] The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation website Archived
July 8, 2008 at the Wayback Machine
[1] “Josef Albers, Artist and Teacher, Dies”. New York
Times. 26 March 1976. p. 33. Retrieved 2008-03-21.
[22] The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation: Mission Statement Archived July 15, 2008 at the Wayback Machine
[2] Roderick Conway Morris (October 21, 2011), Making of
a Bauhaus Master New York Times.
[23] “Most frequently requested artists list of the Artists Rights
Society”. Arsny.com. Retrieved 2014-05-02.
[3] Josef Albers Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art,
Bentonville.
[24] “randomhouse.com”.
2014-05-02.
[4] Holland Cotter (July 26, 2012), Harmony, Harder Than It
Looks - ‘Josef Albers in America: Painting on Paper,’ at
the Morgan New York Times.
[25] Carol Vogel (October 3, 1997), Sotheby’s Loses Albers
Estate New York Times.
[5] Pepe Carmel (June 25, 1995), A Modern Master of Bottles, Scraps and Squares New York Times.
[6] Robert Ayers (March 29, 2006). “Susan Weil”. ARTINFO. Retrieved 2008-04-22.
[7] Rob Roy Kelly (June 23, 1989). “Origins: Yale years”.
Retrieved 2010-02-09.
[8] “Josef Albers and Heirs exhibit on view at The Elliott Museum in Florida”. Retrieved April 7, 2014.
[9] “Elliott Museum presents ‘Albers & Heirs: Josef Albers,
Neil Welliver, and Jane Davis Doggett’". Martin County
Times. Martincountytimes.com. 2013-11-09. Retrieved
2014-05-14.
[10] Masheck, Joseph (Dec–Jan 2009-2010). “ALBERS’
RECORD JACKETS: Doing an Artful Job”. The Brooklyn Rail. Check date values in: |date= (help)
[11] “Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter A” (PDF).
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 6
April 2011.
[12] Josef Albers Museum of Modern Art, Manhattan
[13] David W. Dunlap (June 17, 2002), Press 'L' for Landmark; Time & Life Lobby, a 50’s Gem, Awaits Recognition New York Times.
[14] Carol Vogel (July 9, 2001), A Familiar Mural Finds Itself
Without a Wall New York Times.
[15] Josef Albers: February 28 — March 27, 2007 Waddington Custot Galleries, London.
[16] Piper, David. The Illustrated History of Art, ISBN 07537-0179-0, p469.
[17] Piper, David. The Illustrated History of Art, ISBN 07537-0179-0, p470.
[18] Christopher Knight (May 14, 2008), Robert Rauschenberg, 1925 - 2008: He led the way to Pop Art Los Angeles
Times.
randomhouse.com.
Retrieved
[26] Josef Albers Fondation Beyeler, Riehen.
[27] J.S. Marcus (December 18, 2010), Re-Examining a
Famed Teacher Wall Street Journal.
[28]
8 Further reading
• Albers, Josef (1975). Interaction of Color. New
Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-30011595-6.
• Bucher, François (1977). Josef Albers: Despite
Straight Lines: An Analysis of His Graphic Constructions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Danilowitz, Brenda; Fred Horowitz (2006). Josef
Albers: to Open Eyes : The Bauhaus, Black Mountain College, and Yale. Phaidon Press. ISBN 978-07148-4599-9.
• Diaz, Eva (2008). “The Ethics of Perception: Josef
Albers in the United States”. Volume XC Number
2 (June): The Art Bulletin.
• Harris, Mary Emma (1987). The Arts at Black
Mountain College. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
• Weber, Nicholas Fox; Licht, Fred (1988). Josef
Albers: A Retrospective (exh. cat.). New York:
Guggenheim Museum Publications. ISBN 978-08109-1876-4.
• Weber, Nicholas Fox; Licht, Fred; Danilowitz,
Brenda (1994). Josef Albers: Glass, Color, and
Light (exh. cat., Peggy Guggenheim Collection,
Venice). New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications. ISBN 978-0-8109-6864-6.
5
• Wurmfeld, Sanford; Rector, Neil K.; Ratliff, Floyd
(August 1, 1996). Color Function Painting: The
Art of Josef Albers, Julian Stanczak and Richard
Anuszkiewicz. Contemporary Collections. ISBN
978-0-9720956-0-0.
9
External links
• The Josef & Anni Albers Foundation
• Art Signature Dictionary, examples of genuine signatures by Josef Albers
• Brooklyn Rail, record jackets
• Cooper Hewitt Museum Exhibition, 2004
• Josef Albers Guggenheim Museum
• Josef Albers at the Museum of Modern Art
• Josef Albers, National Gallery of Australia, Kenneth Tyler Collection
• Pace Gallery
• Tate Modern Exhibition, London 2006
• “Josef Albers Papers, 1933-1961”, The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives.
Archives of American Art collection:
• Josef Albers interview, 1968 June 22-July 5
• Josef Albers letters to J. B. Neumann, 1934-1947
• Josef Albers papers, 1929-1970
Works by Josef Albers
• Brooke Alexander Gallery
• Google images; many pictures of the artworks made
by Albers
• Google images; many pictures of the artworks made
by Albers
6
10
10
10.1
TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES
Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses
Text
• Josef Albers Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Albers?oldid=693782072 Contributors: Dreamyshade, Deb, Camembert, Angela, Hyacinth, Craigor, Robbot, Pigsonthewing, Dumbledad, Lupin, Daccy, Pethan, The stuart, D6, Arevich, Dystopos, Catpad~enwiki,
Mdd, Alansohn, Gary, Shadowolf, WadeSimMiser, Wikiklrsc, SDC, Mandarax, Sparkit, Mendaliv, Rjwilmsi, Jake Wartenberg, Lockley,
Vary, DoubleBlue, FlaBot, Xcia0069, DVdm, Sophitus, YurikBot, Anders.Warga, Ragesoss, Nlu, Tyrenius, Wpearl, SmackBot, Ohnoitsjamie, Bluebot, UnkleFester, Can't sleep, clown will eat me, Brossj54, Wizardman, John, Gobonobo, Mhjohns, Hu12, Jetman, Wjejskenewr,
Ewulp, Courcelles, Chovain, MarylandArtLover, WeggeBot, Chicheley, Cydebot, Travelbird, Blaise Mann, BetacommandBot, Thijs!bot,
Ichthys58, Missvain, ProfL, Klausness, Kansascity96, BokicaK, Modernist, Dni, Mnasiri7, MER-C, Newvocals, .anacondabot, Magioladitis, GearedBull, Jerome Kohl, Usefulwork, The Toque, Oratorio~enwiki, CliffC, Vigyani, Marika Herskovic, Mettimeline, Bus stop,
Johnpacklambert, 83d40m, Drlstudio4, Philip Trueman, GcSwRhIc, AlysTarr, Wenli, Hennap, AlleborgoBot, Calliopejen1, Parhamr,
Yintan, Monegasque, Wmpearl, Oxymoron83, Iwmills, Coldcreation, Fuddle, Wuhwuzdat, ClueBot, Song of the Dragon, All Hallow’s
Wraith, Teeping, Maxbeck, Lynu Eng, Warhead293, NERIC-Security, AlexGWU, BodhisattvaBot, UPSUCK, Avoided, Addbot, Fenbaud,
Wulf Isebrand, JPLei, LaaknorBot, SamatBot, Lightbot, Margin1522, Luckas-bot, Yobot, Themfromspace, GreatInDayton, Artiste2008,
KamikazeBot, Solo Zone, AnomieBOT, Elm-39, Big dog411, ArthurBot, Xqbot, Addihockey10, Benfo-Dutch, Sionk, Omnipaedista,
Citation bot 1, Sexybomb1816, Bigowie, DrilBot, PaceWildenstein, I dream of horses, PaceWildensteinPR, LittleWink, Tyler1983, Andrewdolkart, Fixer88, Tim1357, TobeBot, Trappist the monk, Csh21, Jowimo, Javierito92, 777sms, DARTH SIDIOUS 2, Bugsbunny2010,
GoingBatty, Zagoury, Minimac’s Clone, Wikipelli, ZéroBot, Artgal25, PearlyEverlasting, ClueBot NG, Widr, Cbernasc, Helpful Pixie Bot,
Furor Teutonicus, Calabe1992, BG19bot, Registreernu, Cyberbot II, YFdyh-bot, Khazar2, RB231, Codename Lisa, Shanyule, Chuntastic,
SingerGal, HasteurBot, Yulemorelli, Xenxax, Edharary, KasparBot, Oanab906 and Anonymous: 127
10.2
Images
• File:'Proto-Form_(B)',_oil_on_fiberboard_work_by_Joseph_Albers,_1938,_Hirshhorn_Museum_and_Sculpture_Garden.jpg
Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/%27Proto-Form_%28B%29%27%2C_oil_on_fiberboard_work_by_Joseph_
Albers%2C_1938%2C_Hirshhorn_Museum_and_Sculpture_Garden.jpg License: Fair use Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
• File:Bilbao_-_Guggenheim_10.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Bilbao_-_Guggenheim_10.jpg License: CC0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Zarateman
• File:Hungary_pecs_-_vasarely0.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Hungary_pecs_-_vasarely0.jpg
License: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
• File:Josef_Albers’{}s_painting_'Homage_to_the_Square',_1965.jpg Source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/20/
Josef_Albers%27s_painting_%27Homage_to_the_Square%27%2C_1965.jpg License: Fair use Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
• File:Wikiquote-logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Wikiquote-logo.svg License: Public domain
Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
10.3
Content license
• Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
Josef Albers (/ˈælbərz, ˈɑːl-/; German: [ˈalbɐs]; March
19, 1888 – March 25, 1976)[1] was a German-born
American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some
of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the twentieth century.
arranged for Albers to be offered a job as head of a new
art school, Black Mountain College, in North Carolina.[5]
In November 1933, he joined the faculty of the college
where he was the head of the painting program until 1949.
At Black Mountain, his students included Ray Johnson,
Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, and Susan Weil. He
also invited important American artists such as Willem
de Kooning, to teach in the summer seminar. Weil remarked that, as a teacher, Albers was “his own academy”
1 Life and work
and she said that Albers claimed that “when you’re in
school, you’re not an artist, you’re a student”, although he
Albers was born into a Roman Catholic family of was very supportive of self-expression when one became
craftsmen in Bottrop, Westphalia, Germany.[2] He an artist and began her or his journey.[6] Albers produced
worked from 1908 to 1913 as a schoolteacher in his home many woodcuts and leaf studies at this time.
town. Albers trained as an art teacher at Königliche Kunstschule in Berlin, Germany, from 1913 to 1915. From
1916 to 1919 he began his work as a printmaker at the
Kunstgewerbschule in Essen. In 1918 he received his first
public commission, Rosa mystica ora pro nobis, a stainedglass window for a church in Essen.[2] In 1919 he went to
Munich, Germany, to study at the Königliche Bayerische
Akademie der Bildenden Kunst, where he was a pupil of
Max Doerner and Franz Stuck.[3]
Albers enrolled as a student in the preliminary course
(Vorkurs) of Johannes Itten at the Weimar Bauhaus in
1920. Although Albers had studied painting, it was as
a maker of stained glass that he joined the faculty of
the Bauhaus in 1922, approaching his chosen medium
as a component of architecture and as a stand-alone art
form.[4] The director and founder of the Bauhaus, Walter
Gropius, asked him in 1923 to teach in the preliminary
course ‘Werklehre' of the department of design to introduce newcomers to the principles of handicrafts, because
Albers came from that background and had appropriate
practice and knowledge.
In 1925, Albers was promoted to professor, the year the
Bauhaus moved to Dessau. At this time, he married Anni
Albers (née Fleischmann) who was a student there. His
work in Dessau included designing furniture and working
with glass. As a younger art teacher, he was teaching at
the Bauhaus among artists who included Oskar Schlemmer, Wassily Kandinsky, and Paul Klee. The so-called
form master, Klee taught the formal aspects in the glass
workshops where Albers was the crafts master; they cooperated for several years.
Josef Albers, Proto-Form (B), oil on fiberboard, 1938,
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
In 1950, Albers left Black Mountain to head the department of design at Yale University in New Haven,
Connecticut. While at Yale, Albers worked to expand
the nascent graphic design program (then called "graphic
arts"), hiring designers Alvin Eisenman, Herbert Matter,
and Alvin Lustig.[7] Albers worked at Yale until he retired
With the closure of the Bauhaus under Nazi pressure in from teaching in 1958. At Yale, Richard Anuszkiewicz,
[8][9]
1933 the artists dispersed, most leaving the country. Al- Eva Hesse, Neil Welliver, and Jane Davis Doggett
bers emigrated to the United States. The architect Philip were notable students.
Johnson, then a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, In 1962, as a fellow at Yale, he received a grant from
1
2
2 STYLE AND INFLUENCES
the Graham Foundation for an exhibit and lecture on his
work. Albers also collaborated with Yale professor and
architect King-lui Wu in creating decorative designs for
some of Wu’s projects. Among these were distinctive
geometric fireplaces for the Rouse (1954) and DuPont
(1959) houses, the façade of Manuscript Society, one of
Yale’s secret senior groups (1962), and a design for the
Mt. Bethel Baptist Church (1973). Also, at this time he
worked on his structural constellation pieces.
In 1963, he published Interaction of Color which presented his theory that colors were governed by an internal
and deceptive logic. The very rare first edition has a limited printing of only 2,000 copies and contained 150 silk
screen plates. This work has been republished since and
is now even available as a cell phone app. Also during this
time, he created the abstract album covers of band leader
Enoch Light's Command LP records. His album cover
for Terry Snyder and the All Stars 1959 album, Persuasive Percussion, shows a tightly packed grid or lattice of
small black disks from which a few wander up and out as
if stray molecules of some light gas.[10] He was elected a
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
in 1973.[11] Albers continued to paint and write, staying
in New Haven with his wife, textile artist, Anni Albers,
until his death in 1976.
1.1
Homage to the Square
he used a palette knife with oil colors and often recorded
the colors he used on the back of his works. Each painting consists of either three or four squares of solid planes
of color nested within one another, in one of four different arrangements and in square formats ranging from
406×406 mm to 1.22×1.22 m.[12]
1.2 Murals
In 1959, a gold-leaf mural by Albers, Two Structural Constellations was engraved in the lobby of the Corning Glass
Building in Manhattan. For the entrance of the Time &
Life Building lobby, he created Two Portals (1961), a 42feet by 14-feet mural of alternating glass bands in white
and brown that recede into two bronze centers to create
an illusion of depth.[13] In the 1960s Walter Gropius, who
was designing the Pan Am Building with Emery Roth
& Sons and Pietro Belluschi, commissioned Albers to
make a mural. The artist reworked City, a sandblasted
glass construction that he had designed in 1929 at the
Bauhaus, and renamed it Manhattan. The giant abstract
mural of black, white, and red strips arranged in interwoven columns stood 28-feet high and 55-feet wide and
was installed in the lobby of the building; it was removed
during a lobby redesign in c. 2000. Before his death in
1976 Albers left exact specifications of the work so it
could easily be replicated.[14] In 1967, his painted mural Growth (1965) as well as Loggia Wall (1965), a brick
relief, were installed on the campus of the Rochester Institute of Technology. Other architectural works include
Gemini (1972), a stainless steel relief for the Grand Avenue National Bank lobby in Kansas City, Missouri, and
Reclining Figure (1972), a mosaic mural for the Celanese
Building in Manhattan destroyed in 1980. At the invitation of a former student, the architect Harry Seidler,
Albers designed the mural Wrestling (1976) for Seidler’s
Mutual Life Center in Sydney, Australia.
2 Style and influences
Josef Albers, Homage to the Square, 1965
He was known to meticulously list the specific manufacturer’s colours and varnishes he used on the back
of his works, as if the colours were catalogued components of an optical experiment.[15] His work represents a transition between traditional European art and
the new American art.[16] It incorporated European influences from the Constructivists and the Bauhaus movement, and its intensity and smallness of scale were typically European,[16] but his influence fell heavily on American artists of the late 1950s and the 1960s.[16] "Hardedge" abstract painters drew on his use of patterns and
intense colors,[17] while Op artists and conceptual artists
further explored his interest in perception.[16]
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
very disciplined approach to composition. Most famous
of all are the hundreds of paintings and prints that make
up the series, Homage to the Square. In this rigorous series, begun in 1949, Albers explored chromatic interac- In an article about the artist, published in 1950, Elaine de
tions with nested squares. Usually painting on Masonite, Kooning concluded that however impersonal his paintings
3
might at first appear, not one of them “could have been
painted by any one but Josef Albers himself.”[2] Although
their relationship was often tense, and sometimes, even
combative, Robert Rauschenberg later identified Albers
as his most important teacher.[18]
3
Exhibitions
In 1936, Albers was given his first solo show in Manhattan at J. B. Neumann’s New Art Circle.[19][20] He participated in documenta I (1955) and documenta IV (1968)
in Kassel. A major Albers exhibition, organized by the
Museum of Modern Art, traveled in South America,
Mexico, and the United States from 1965 to 1967.[19] In
1971 he was the first living artist to be given a solo show
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan.[12] In
2010, a show of 80 oil works on paper, many never exhibited before, was mounted by the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, later travelling to other venues, including
Centre Pompidou in Paris, and The Morgan Library &
Museum in Manhattan. In 2014, an exhibition at the Elliott Museum in Stuart, FL called “Albers and Heirs” featured the work of Albers, Neil Welliver, and Jane Davis
Doggett.[8][9]
4
Legacy
The Josef Albers papers, documents from 1929 to 1970,
were donated by the artist to the Smithsonian Institution's
Archives of American Art in 1969 and 1970. In 1971
(nearly five years before his death), Albers founded the
Josef and Anni Albers Foundation,[21] a nonprofit organization he hoped would further “the revelation and evocation of vision through art.” Today, this organization not
only serves as the office for the estates of both Josef Albers and his wife Anni Albers, but also supports exhibitions and publications focused on the works of both
Albers. The official foundation building is located in
Bethany, Connecticut, and “includes a central research
and archival storage center to accommodate the Foundation’s art collections, library and archives, and offices, as
well as residence studios for visiting artists.”[22]
The U.S. copyright representative for the Josef and Anni
Albers Foundation is the Artists Rights Society.[23] The
executive director of the foundation is Nicholas Fox Weber, an author of fourteen books.[24] Later the foundation was instrumental in having four fakes from Italy, represented as the work of Albers and on sale in auction
houses and galleries in France and Germany, seized by
the police.[2]
In 1997, one year after the auction house, Sotheby’s, had
bought the Andre Emmerich Gallery, the Josef and Anni
Albers Foundation, the main beneficiary of the estates
of both artists, did not renew its three-year contract with
the gallery.[25] Currently, the foundation is represented by
The Pace Gallery in New York, Waddington Custot Galleries in London, and the Alan Cristea Gallery in London, and now, a large part of his estate is held by the
Josef Albers Museum in Bottrop, Germany, where he was
born.[26]
5 Value on the art market
Several paintings in his series “Homage to the Square”
have outsold their estimates. Homage to the Square:
Joy (1964) sold for $1.5 million, nearly double its estimate, during a 2007 sale at Sotheby’s.[27] More recently,
“Study for Homage to the Square,R-III E.B.” also sold for
around twice the estimated $545,000-$700,000, eventually reaching $1.22 million at auction.[28]
6 See also
• Architype Albers (large typeface based on Albers 1927–1931 experimentation with geometrically constructed stencil types for posters and signs)
• Bauhaus
6.1 Noted students of Albers
• Richard Anuszkiewicz (painter)
• Ruth Asawa (sculptor)
• John Day (painter)
• Norman Carlberg (sculptor)
• Robert Engman (sculptor)
• Erwin Hauer (sculptor)
• Gerald Garston (painter)
• Eva Hesse (sculptor)
• Robert Rauschenberg (painter and sculptor)
• Harry Seidler (architect)
• Robert Slutzky (1929-2005) painter, teacher of
painting and architecture, co-author, with Colin
Rowe, of Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal,
Parts I and II
• Julian Stanczak (painter)
• Cora Kelley Ward (painter)
• Neil Welliver (painter)
• Jane Davis Doggett (graphic artist and designer of
airport wayfinding signage systems)
4
8 FURTHER READING
• Varujan Boghosian (collage artist and sculptor)
• Irving Petlin (painter)
7
References
[19] Josef Albers Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New
York.
[20] J.B. Neumann Papers in The Museum of Modern Art
Archives
[21] The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation website Archived
July 8, 2008 at the Wayback Machine
[1] “Josef Albers, Artist and Teacher, Dies”. New York
Times. 26 March 1976. p. 33. Retrieved 2008-03-21.
[22] The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation: Mission Statement Archived July 15, 2008 at the Wayback Machine
[2] Roderick Conway Morris (October 21, 2011), Making of
a Bauhaus Master New York Times.
[23] “Most frequently requested artists list of the Artists Rights
Society”. Arsny.com. Retrieved 2014-05-02.
[3] Josef Albers Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art,
Bentonville.
[24] “randomhouse.com”.
2014-05-02.
[4] Holland Cotter (July 26, 2012), Harmony, Harder Than It
Looks - ‘Josef Albers in America: Painting on Paper,’ at
the Morgan New York Times.
[25] Carol Vogel (October 3, 1997), Sotheby’s Loses Albers
Estate New York Times.
[5] Pepe Carmel (June 25, 1995), A Modern Master of Bottles, Scraps and Squares New York Times.
[6] Robert Ayers (March 29, 2006). “Susan Weil”. ARTINFO. Retrieved 2008-04-22.
[7] Rob Roy Kelly (June 23, 1989). “Origins: Yale years”.
Retrieved 2010-02-09.
[8] “Josef Albers and Heirs exhibit on view at The Elliott Museum in Florida”. Retrieved April 7, 2014.
[9] “Elliott Museum presents ‘Albers & Heirs: Josef Albers,
Neil Welliver, and Jane Davis Doggett’". Martin County
Times. Martincountytimes.com. 2013-11-09. Retrieved
2014-05-14.
[10] Masheck, Joseph (Dec–Jan 2009-2010). “ALBERS’
RECORD JACKETS: Doing an Artful Job”. The Brooklyn Rail. Check date values in: |date= (help)
[11] “Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter A” (PDF).
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 6
April 2011.
[12] Josef Albers Museum of Modern Art, Manhattan
[13] David W. Dunlap (June 17, 2002), Press 'L' for Landmark; Time & Life Lobby, a 50’s Gem, Awaits Recognition New York Times.
[14] Carol Vogel (July 9, 2001), A Familiar Mural Finds Itself
Without a Wall New York Times.
[15] Josef Albers: February 28 — March 27, 2007 Waddington Custot Galleries, London.
[16] Piper, David. The Illustrated History of Art, ISBN 07537-0179-0, p469.
[17] Piper, David. The Illustrated History of Art, ISBN 07537-0179-0, p470.
[18] Christopher Knight (May 14, 2008), Robert Rauschenberg, 1925 - 2008: He led the way to Pop Art Los Angeles
Times.
randomhouse.com.
Retrieved
[26] Josef Albers Fondation Beyeler, Riehen.
[27] J.S. Marcus (December 18, 2010), Re-Examining a
Famed Teacher Wall Street Journal.
[28]
8 Further reading
• Albers, Josef (1975). Interaction of Color. New
Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-30011595-6.
• Bucher, François (1977). Josef Albers: Despite
Straight Lines: An Analysis of His Graphic Constructions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Danilowitz, Brenda; Fred Horowitz (2006). Josef
Albers: to Open Eyes : The Bauhaus, Black Mountain College, and Yale. Phaidon Press. ISBN 978-07148-4599-9.
• Diaz, Eva (2008). “The Ethics of Perception: Josef
Albers in the United States”. Volume XC Number
2 (June): The Art Bulletin.
• Harris, Mary Emma (1987). The Arts at Black
Mountain College. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
• Weber, Nicholas Fox; Licht, Fred (1988). Josef
Albers: A Retrospective (exh. cat.). New York:
Guggenheim Museum Publications. ISBN 978-08109-1876-4.
• Weber, Nicholas Fox; Licht, Fred; Danilowitz,
Brenda (1994). Josef Albers: Glass, Color, and
Light (exh. cat., Peggy Guggenheim Collection,
Venice). New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications. ISBN 978-0-8109-6864-6.
5
• Wurmfeld, Sanford; Rector, Neil K.; Ratliff, Floyd
(August 1, 1996). Color Function Painting: The
Art of Josef Albers, Julian Stanczak and Richard
Anuszkiewicz. Contemporary Collections. ISBN
978-0-9720956-0-0.
9
External links
• The Josef & Anni Albers Foundation
• Art Signature Dictionary, examples of genuine signatures by Josef Albers
• Brooklyn Rail, record jackets
• Cooper Hewitt Museum Exhibition, 2004
• Josef Albers Guggenheim Museum
• Josef Albers at the Museum of Modern Art
• Josef Albers, National Gallery of Australia, Kenneth Tyler Collection
• Pace Gallery
• Tate Modern Exhibition, London 2006
• “Josef Albers Papers, 1933-1961”, The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives.
Archives of American Art collection:
• Josef Albers interview, 1968 June 22-July 5
• Josef Albers letters to J. B. Neumann, 1934-1947
• Josef Albers papers, 1929-1970
Works by Josef Albers
• Brooke Alexander Gallery
• Google images; many pictures of the artworks made
by Albers
• Google images; many pictures of the artworks made
by Albers
6
10
10
10.1
TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES
Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses
Text
• Josef Albers Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Albers?oldid=693782072 Contributors: Dreamyshade, Deb, Camembert, Angela, Hyacinth, Craigor, Robbot, Pigsonthewing, Dumbledad, Lupin, Daccy, Pethan, The stuart, D6, Arevich, Dystopos, Catpad~enwiki,
Mdd, Alansohn, Gary, Shadowolf, WadeSimMiser, Wikiklrsc, SDC, Mandarax, Sparkit, Mendaliv, Rjwilmsi, Jake Wartenberg, Lockley,
Vary, DoubleBlue, FlaBot, Xcia0069, DVdm, Sophitus, YurikBot, Anders.Warga, Ragesoss, Nlu, Tyrenius, Wpearl, SmackBot, Ohnoitsjamie, Bluebot, UnkleFester, Can't sleep, clown will eat me, Brossj54, Wizardman, John, Gobonobo, Mhjohns, Hu12, Jetman, Wjejskenewr,
Ewulp, Courcelles, Chovain, MarylandArtLover, WeggeBot, Chicheley, Cydebot, Travelbird, Blaise Mann, BetacommandBot, Thijs!bot,
Ichthys58, Missvain, ProfL, Klausness, Kansascity96, BokicaK, Modernist, Dni, Mnasiri7, MER-C, Newvocals, .anacondabot, Magioladitis, GearedBull, Jerome Kohl, Usefulwork, The Toque, Oratorio~enwiki, CliffC, Vigyani, Marika Herskovic, Mettimeline, Bus stop,
Johnpacklambert, 83d40m, Drlstudio4, Philip Trueman, GcSwRhIc, AlysTarr, Wenli, Hennap, AlleborgoBot, Calliopejen1, Parhamr,
Yintan, Monegasque, Wmpearl, Oxymoron83, Iwmills, Coldcreation, Fuddle, Wuhwuzdat, ClueBot, Song of the Dragon, All Hallow’s
Wraith, Teeping, Maxbeck, Lynu Eng, Warhead293, NERIC-Security, AlexGWU, BodhisattvaBot, UPSUCK, Avoided, Addbot, Fenbaud,
Wulf Isebrand, JPLei, LaaknorBot, SamatBot, Lightbot, Margin1522, Luckas-bot, Yobot, Themfromspace, GreatInDayton, Artiste2008,
KamikazeBot, Solo Zone, AnomieBOT, Elm-39, Big dog411, ArthurBot, Xqbot, Addihockey10, Benfo-Dutch, Sionk, Omnipaedista,
Citation bot 1, Sexybomb1816, Bigowie, DrilBot, PaceWildenstein, I dream of horses, PaceWildensteinPR, LittleWink, Tyler1983, Andrewdolkart, Fixer88, Tim1357, TobeBot, Trappist the monk, Csh21, Jowimo, Javierito92, 777sms, DARTH SIDIOUS 2, Bugsbunny2010,
GoingBatty, Zagoury, Minimac’s Clone, Wikipelli, ZéroBot, Artgal25, PearlyEverlasting, ClueBot NG, Widr, Cbernasc, Helpful Pixie Bot,
Furor Teutonicus, Calabe1992, BG19bot, Registreernu, Cyberbot II, YFdyh-bot, Khazar2, RB231, Codename Lisa, Shanyule, Chuntastic,
SingerGal, HasteurBot, Yulemorelli, Xenxax, Edharary, KasparBot, Oanab906 and Anonymous: 127
10.2
Images
• File:'Proto-Form_(B)',_oil_on_fiberboard_work_by_Joseph_Albers,_1938,_Hirshhorn_Museum_and_Sculpture_Garden.jpg
Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/%27Proto-Form_%28B%29%27%2C_oil_on_fiberboard_work_by_Joseph_
Albers%2C_1938%2C_Hirshhorn_Museum_and_Sculpture_Garden.jpg License: Fair use Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
• File:Bilbao_-_Guggenheim_10.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Bilbao_-_Guggenheim_10.jpg License: CC0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Zarateman
• File:Hungary_pecs_-_vasarely0.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Hungary_pecs_-_vasarely0.jpg
License: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
• File:Josef_Albers’{}s_painting_'Homage_to_the_Square',_1965.jpg Source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/20/
Josef_Albers%27s_painting_%27Homage_to_the_Square%27%2C_1965.jpg License: Fair use Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
• File:Wikiquote-logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Wikiquote-logo.svg License: Public domain
Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
10.3
Content license
• Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
