Collection: Josef Albers   1888 - 1976 

Josef Albers (1888 – 1976) was a remarkable German artist and teacher 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. Accomplished as a designer, photographer, typographer, printmaker and poet, Albers is best remembered for his work as an abstract painter. He favoured a very disciplined approach to composition, and published several widely-read books and articles on the theory of form and colour.

Albers’ theories about art and colour powerfully influenced a whole generation of American artists including Robert Rauschenberg who claimed: ‘I consider Albers as the most important teacher I’ve ever had...what he taught had to do with the entire visual world’. His own paintings form the foundation of both hard-edge abstraction and Op art. After retiring from Yale, Albers continued to live and work in New Haven with his wife, textile artist Anni Albers, until his death on March 26, 1976.