German years Formative years in Westphalia Albers was born into a
Roman Catholic family of
craftsmen in
Bottrop,
Westphalia,
Germany, in 1888. His father, Lorenzo Albers, was variously a housepainter, carpenter, and handyman. His mother came from a family of blacksmiths. His childhood included practical training in engraving glass, plumbing, and wiring, giving Josef versatility and lifelong confidence in the handling and manipulation of diverse materials. He worked from 1908 to 1913 as a schoolteacher in his home town; he also trained as an art teacher at Königliche Kunstschule in Berlin, Germany, from 1913 to 1915. From 1916 to 1919 he began his work as a printmaker at the Kunstgewerbschule in Essen, where he learnt stained-glass making with Dutch artist
Johan Thorn Prikker. In 1918 he received his first public commission,
Rosa mystica ora pro nobis, a
stained-glass window for a church in Bottrop.
Entry into the Bauhaus Albers enrolled as a student in the preliminary course (
vorkurs) of
Johannes Itten at the Weimar
Bauhaus in 1920. Although Albers had studied painting, it was as a maker of stained glass that he joined the faculty of the Bauhaus in 1922, approaching his chosen medium as a component of architecture and as a stand-alone art form. 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, the year the Bauhaus moved to
Dessau, Albers was promoted to professor. At this time, he married
Anni Albers (
née Fleischmann) who was a student at the institution. His work in
Dessau included designing furniture and working with glass. As a younger instructor, he was teaching at the Bauhaus among established artists who included
Oskar Schlemmer,
Wassily Kandinsky, and
Paul Klee. The so-called "form master" Klee taught the formal aspects in the glass workshops where Albers was the "crafts master"; they cooperated for several years.
Emigration to the United States Black Mountain College With the closure of the Bauhaus under
Nazi pressure in 1933 the artists dispersed, most leaving the country. Albers emigrated to the United States. The architect
Philip Johnson, then a curator at the
Museum of Modern Art in New York City, arranged for Albers to be offered a job as head of a new art school,
Black Mountain College, in
North Carolina. In November 1933, he joined the faculty of the college where he was the head of the painting program until 1949. At Black Mountain, his students included
Ruth Asawa,
Ray Johnson,
Robert Rauschenberg,
Cy Twombly, and
Susan Weil. He also invited important American artists such as
Willem de Kooning, to teach in the summer seminar. Weil remarked that, as a teacher, Albers was "his own academy". She said that Albers claimed that "when you're in school, you're not an artist, you're a student", although he was very supportive of self-expression when one became an artist and began on her or his journey. Albers produced many
woodcuts and leaf studies at this time.
Yale University , 1938,
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden 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. Albers worked at Yale until he retired from teaching in 1958. At Yale,
Richard Anuszkiewicz,
Eva Hesse,
Neil Welliver, and
Jane Davis Doggett were notable students. In 1962, as a
fellow at Yale, he received a grant from the Graham Foundation for the Advanced Studies of Fine Arts for an exhibit and lecture on his work. 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. Also during this time, he created the abstract
album covers of band leader
Enoch Light's
Command LP records. His album cover for Terry Snyder and the All Stars 1959 album,
Persuasive Percussion, shows a tightly packed grid or lattice of small black disks from which a few wander up and out as if stray molecules of some light gas. He was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1973. In 1970, Albers and his wife moved to
Orange, Connecticut, where they continued to work in their private studio. Albers died in his sleep on March 25, 1976, at the
Yale New Haven Hospital after being admitted for a possible
heart ailment.
Command Records Josef Albers produced album covers for over three years between 1959 and 1961, Albers' seven album sleeves for Command Records incorporated elements such as circles and grids of dots, highly uncommon in his practice. "The series of records made by Command Records over half a century ago still resonate with audiophiles today, and are much sought-after by connoisseurs of mid-century modern design for their striking covers. This was all due to the collaboration between two individuals, Josef Albers and Enoch Light. Both men — one an influential teacher and artist, the other a stereo-recording pioneer — driven by strong convictions and passion for their respective crafts." ==Works==