Josef Albers (American, 1888 - 1976) was born in 1888 in Bottrop, Germany, a coal-mining city. He learned skills like engraving glass, plumbing, wiring, house-painting, and other crafts from his father who was a general contractor. Albers worked as a school teacher for young children from 1908 to 1913. His role as a teacher exempted him from military service during WWI. He moved to Munich in 1919 and arrived at the Weimar Bauhaus in 1920, the year after its founding. Albers studied at the Bauhaus and later taught alongside his wife, Anni. Josef worked in carpentry, metalwork, glass, photography, and graphic design. In 1933, the Berlin Bauhaus was forced to close by the Nazis and the Albers moved to America to teach at the new, revolutionary Black Mountain College in North Carolina. In 1950, Albers became the chairman of the Department of Design at Yale where he taught until his retirement in 1958. He continued making work, in particular at printshops and in the private studio that he shared with Anni. Albers passed away in New Haven in 1976.
Albers is considered one of the most influential art teachers in the United States and a key contributor to the modern and abstract arts movements internationally as a member of the Bauhaus. In particular, he is best known for the Homage to the Square series and development of color theory. He is also well known for his collaborators, co-educators and students, including teaching with Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee at the Bauhaus, teaching to Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Ruth Asawa, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jacob Lawrence at Black Mountain College, and to Richard Anuszkiewicz and Eva Hesse at Yale, to name a few.
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