Josef Albers
1888–1976
Josef Albers was an iconic painter, designer, educator and pioneer of modernism. Wright celebrates his legacy achieving a remarkable half million at auction for a painting in February 2018 and offering the artist's work at a 93% sell-through rate.
Free Evaluation
Things to Know About Josef Albers
In 1922, Albers joined the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany. While a student he met his wife, textile artist Anni Albers. He was the first Bauhaus student to be promoted to role of instructor and become a master.
The couple was invited by architect Philip Johnson to build the curriculum and join the faculty at Black Mountain College in North Carolina instructing students such as Robert Rauschenberg, Kenneth Noland, Ruth Asawa, and Cy Twombly.
In 1950, he became chairman of the Department of Design at Yale where he remained for 10 years. During this time, he began creating his seminal series Homage to the Square.
His innovative 1963 book Interaction of Color profoundly influenced modern art education of the 20th century.
Albers was honored with the first retrospective given to a living artist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 1971.
When you really understand that each color is changed by a changed environment, you eventually find that you have learned about life as well as about color.
Josef Albers
Josef Albers 1888–1976
From a young age, Josef Albers possessed an innate interest in glass and color. His father was a painter, and as a child, Albers loved to watch his father create. Albers commenced his formal training in art under the Dutch glass artist Jan Thorn-Prikker, who was a former follower of Henry Van der Velde. Beginning his studies at the Bauhaus in 1920, Albers quickly became involved in new experimentations in glass and painting. While he was a student, Albers began dating Anni Fleischmann, a talented student in textiles at the Bauhaus and in 1925 the two married. That same year, Josef became the Bauhaus master, the first student to hold the position.
The Albers moved to the United States in 1933, leaving Germany due to the rise of the Nazi Party. The architect, Philip Johnson recommended Josef Albers for a position at the newly formed Black Mountain College. Albers headed the progressive school’s art program and while director he taught many of the most celebrated American artists of the twentieth century, including Ruth Asawa, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Serra, Robert Motherwell, Kenneth Noland, and others. In 1949, Albers left Black Mountain College to serve as the Chairman of the Design department at Yale. It was there that he executed his most famous series of paintings entitled Homage to a Square.
Throughout the 1960s, Albers received several commissions to craft murals for new architectural projects; notably, in 1963, he completed a monumental abstract mural for the Pan Am building in New York. In 1971, five years before his death, Albers was the first living artist to be honored with a retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Auction Results Josef Albers
To learn more about a work by Josef Albers in your collection, contact our specialists.
Free Evaluation
Simultaneous contrast is not just a curious optical phenomenon—it is the very heart of painting.
Josef Albers
