Presentation on the life and work of Josef Albers

2. josef
albers

3. Table of Contents
Timeline
Bauhaus Period
Teaching
Influence
Work
Marriage

4. 1925
1976
1913-
1915
1888 1916-
1919
1920
1918
1922
1923
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
Germany
Son 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

5. Bauhaus
Period
Albers enrolled at
the Bauhaus in
1920
He 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

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

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

9. Josef Albers
Gitterbild, 1921
Glass, metal, and wire

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

11. Josef Albers Fabrik, 1925 sandblasted flashed glass with black paint

12. Josef Albers Frontal, 1927 sandblasted flashed glass with black paint

13. 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

14. 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

15. In 1933 after the Bauhaus
closed due to Nazi pressure
Albers was invited to
become head of the art
program at Black Mountain
college in North Carolina
He 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
unseen
Space is never empty,
hollows and voids were as
important as the solids

16. 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

17. 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

18. The
Marriage

19. 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

20. 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

21. Kasimir Malevich
Red Square, 1915

22. 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 series
His body of work included
various mediums such as
painting, furniture design,
printmaking, glass, and
drawing

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

24. Josef Albers study for homage to
the square 1948
Josef Albers study for Mantic, 1940

25. Josef Albers Sandgrube I, 1916
Linoleum cut
Josef Albers Self-Portrait, 1917
Transfer lithograph

26. Josef Albers Oper/Opera, 1933 woodcut

27. Josef Allbers High Up, 1948 woodcut

28. Josef Albers Two Supraportas, 1972 stainless steel

29. Josef Albers, Multiplex 8 1947
Wood engraving
Josef Albers, Window 1923 colored
glass, Bauhaus in Weimar

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

31. Josef Albers Variant/Adobe, 1948 oil on masonite