Written by: Jacqueline Yu Outside of the artistic world, Josef Albers is a relatively unknown name. However, within artistic spheres and especially art education spheres, Albers is a revolutionary. Albers was born on March 19, 1888 in Bottrop, Germany. He studied to become a teacher in Buren from 1905 to 1908 and worked as a primary school teacher from 1908 to 1913. During this time, Albers realized that he wished to teach art, so he left his teaching position to attend the Königliche Kunstschule in Berlin from 1913 to 1915 to receive his certification. He also studied lithography in Essen and attended the Academy in Munich. When he was 32, he entered the Bauhaus, a school in Weimar that explored the relationship between art and technology. This school actively combined elements of architecture, fine art, and craft. At Bauhaus, Albers originally specialized in stained glass and even led the workshop at the school. However, he slowly transitioned into teaching a basic design course called Vorkurs. The school moved to Dessau in 1925 where Albers became a professor and worked with other influential artists like Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. During his time at Bauhaus, Albers dabbled in both furniture design and typography. In 1933, the Nazis forced Bauhaus to close, and Albers found himself at a loss. With the help of Philip Johnson, a member of the architecture department at the Museum of Modern Art, Albers moved to America and found employment at Black Mountain College, another experimental school whose undergraduate program centered on art and provided a land of creativity for students and faculty alike. Albers taught one of the two courses required for all students, a class on materials and form. He was also the head of painting from 1933 to 1949. Albers brought Bauhaus to Black Mountain, but he was also heavily influenced by the works of John Dewey, an American philosopher who believed in the importance of experimentation and direct experience in education. While teaching at Black Mountain, Albers began the “Variant/Adobe” series which explored the vast abilities of color, shape, and positioning. He also exhibited his work in more than 20 solo shows in America. His work at Black Mountain allowed him to work and teach with artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, and Ray Johnson. In 1949, Albers left Black Mountain College to be the chairman of the design department at Yale from 1950 to 1958. During this time, he started his critically acclaimed series “Homage to the Square” which explored the effects of color using the simple shape of the square. With “Homage to the Square,” Albers became the first living artist to be honored by a solo retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Furthermore, the series made a tour from New York to South America via the Museum of Modern Art. At Yale, Albers taught monumental artists like Richard Anuszkiewicz and Eva Hesse. When he was 70 years old, Albers retired from Yale and subsequently began his mural career. He painted the interior of the New Graduate Center at Harvard, “Two Portals” at the Time and Life Building, and “Manhattan” at the Pan Am building. His retired life also involved many guest lectures at Colleges and Universities around the country. On March 25, 1976, Albers died. Albers is remembered for his highly influential work in the field of art education. He worked to open the eyes of his students by changing how they perceived the world. He wanted students to consider forms apart from traditional associations and focus on the basic aspects of an object like line, material, and color. Albers process was to defamiliarize his pupils from the normalities of life and practice. He used techniques like drawing with one’s non-dominant hand to achieve his intended effect. Today, his ideology is central and an accepted part of academic training for visual artists. Albers is also known for his almost scientific approach to art based on concepts like observation and experimentation as shown by his series “Homage to the Square.” His influence is perhaps best seen by the artists that he taught at Black Mountain College and Yale University and how they tackled art using his practices.
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ContributorsJACQUELINE YU is the co-founder of the MLWGS art history online magazine. She is an incredible artist and devotes much of her time to both participating in, experiencing, and appreciating art. Archives
April 2019
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