Josef Albers

Biography

Painter and poet, sculptor and teacher, Josef Albers was one of the most influential figures in 20th-century abstract art and his theoretical work is still a cornerstone of Western approaches to art education. Albers both studied and taught at the Bauhaus, before emigrating to the US in 1933, where he headed art departments first at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, then at Yale, and taught the likes of Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Eva Hesse and Ray Johnson. Albers’ Homage to the Square series of paintings, begun in 1950, remain his most influential work.