Josef Albers
Josef Albers | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | March 19, 1888 |
| Died | March 25, 1976 (aged 88) |
| Nationality | German-American |
| Known for | Abstract Painting, Study of Color |
| Movement | Geometric abstraction |
Josef Albers (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 20th century.
Life
Albers was born in Bottrop, Westphalia, Germany. He studied art in Berlin, Essen, and Munich, before enrolling as a student in the basic course of Johannes Itten at the prestigious Weimar Bauhaus in 1920. 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 also 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 with artists including Oskar Schlemmer, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. Klee was the so-called form master who taught the formal aspects in the glass workshops where Albers was the crafts master; they cooperated for several years.
With the closure of the Bauhaus under Nazi pressure in 1939, Albers emigrated to the United States; in November 1933, he joined the faculty of Black Mountain College, North Carolina, where he ran the painting program until 1949. At Black Mountain, his students included Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Ray Johnson and Susan Weil. He also invited important American artists as Willem de Kooning, to teach in the summer seminar. Weil remarked that, as a teacher, Albers was "his own academy" and said that Albers claimed that "when you’re in school, you’re not an artist, you’re a student", though he was very supportive of self-expression when one became an artist and began his or her journey.[2] Albers produced many woodcuts and leaf studies at this time.
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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.[3] Albers worked at Yale until he retired from teaching in 1958. In 1962, as a fellow at Yale, he received a grant from the Graham Foundation for an exhibit and lecture on his work. At Yale, Richard Anuszkiewicz and Eva Hesse were notable students. 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. Also during this time, he created the abstract album covers of band leader Enoch Light's Command LP records. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1973.[4] Albers continued to paint and write, staying in New Haven with his wife, textile artist Anni Albers, until his death in 1976.
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 interactions with flat colored squares arranged concentrically. Painting usually on Masonite, he used a palette knife with oil colors and often recorded colors used on the back of his works.
In 1971 (nearly five years before his death), Albers founded the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation,[5] a non-profit organization he hoped would further "the revelation and evocation of vision through art." Today, this organization not only serves as the office Estate of both Josef Albers and his wife Anni Albers, but also supports exhibitions and publications focused on Albers works. 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."[6] The U.S. copyright representative for the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation is the Artists Rights Society.[7] The executive director of the foundation is Nicholas Fox Weber, an author of fourteen books.[8] The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation is represented by The Pace Gallery, New York.
Style
Albers's work represents a transition between traditional European art and the new American art.[9] It incorporated European influences from the constructivists and the Bauhaus movement, and its intensity and smallness of scale were typically European.[9] But his influence fell heavily on American artists of the late 1950s and the 1960s.[9] "Hard-edge" abstract painters drew on his use of patterns and intense colors,[10] while Op artists and conceptual artists further explored his interest in perception.[9]
See also
- Architype Albers (typeface based on Albers 1927–1931 experimentation with geometrically constructed stencil type)
- Bauhaus
- Robert Rauschenberg (American sculptor and painter of the New Dada movement, noted student of Albers)
- Richard Anuszkiewicz (American painter of the Op-Art movement, noted student of Albers)
- Norman Carlberg (sculptor, noted student of Albers)
- Erwin Hauer (sculptor, noted student of Albers)
- Harry Seidler (architect, noted student of Albers)
- Eva Hesse (sculptor, noted student of Albers)
- Julian Stanczak (painter, noted student of Albers)
- Robert Engman (sculptor, noted student of Albers)
References
- ^ "Josef Albers, Artist and Teacher, Dies". New York Times. 26 March 1976. p. 33. Retrieved 2008-03-21.
- ^ Robert Ayers (March 29, 2006). "Susan Weil" (Document). ARTINFO.
{{cite document}}: Unknown parameter|accessdate=ignored (help); Unknown parameter|url=ignored (help) - ^ Rob Roy Kelly (June 23, 1989). "Origins: Yale years". Retrieved 2010-02-09.
- ^ "Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter A" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 6 April 2011.
- ^ The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation website
- ^ The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation: Mission Statement
- ^ Most frequently requested artists list of the Artists Rights Society
- ^ randomhouse.com
- ^ a b c d Piper, David. The Illustrated History of Art, ISBN 0753701790, p469.
- ^ Piper, David. The Illustrated History of Art, ISBN 0753701790, p470.
Further reading
- Albers, Josef (1975). Interaction of Color. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300115956.
- Bucher, François (1977). Josef Albers: Despite Straight Lines: An Analysis of His Graphic Constructions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- Danilowitz, Brenda (2006). Josef Albers: to Open Eyes : The Bauhaus, Black Mountain College, and Yale. Phaidon Press. ISBN 9780714845999.
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- Diaz, Eva (2008). "The Ethics of Perception: Josef Albers in the United States". Volume XC Number 2 (June): The Art Bulletin.
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- Harris, Mary Emma (1987). The Arts at Black Mountain College. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
- Weber, Nicholas Fox (1988). Josef Albers: A Retrospective (exh. cat.). New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications. ISBN 9780810918764.
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- Weber, Nicholas Fox (1994). Josef Albers: Glass, Color, and Light (exh. cat., Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice). New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications. ISBN 9780810968646.
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- Wurmfeld, Sanford (August 1, 1996). Color Function Painting: The Art of Josef Albers, Julian Stanczak and Richard Anuszkiewicz. Contemporary Collections. ISBN 9780972095600.
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External links
- Josef Albers at the Museum of Modern Art
- Josef Albers Guggenheim Museum
- The Josef & Anni Albers Foundation* The Pace Gallery
- Tate Modern Exhibition, London 2006
- Cooper Hewitt Museum Exhibition, 2004
- Josef Albers in the National Gallery of Australia's Kenneth Tyler Collection
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, 1958-1970
- Josef Albers papers, 1929-1969
Works By Josef Albers
Template:Persondata |AGE OF DEATH=88 years old
- 1888 births
- 1976 deaths
- People from Bottrop
- AIGA Medalists
- American artists
- American painters
- American printmakers
- German painters
- American artists of German descent
- Bauhaus
- Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
- Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
- Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Archives of American Art related