Education
German born US painter, designer, and influential teacher of art. Joseph Albers was born to a family of artisans in Bottrop Germany and inherited a family tradition of careful, exact workmanship. He began his study of the art in 1908 and first experimented with printmaking in 1915.
Before 1920 Albers divided his time between teaching and art studies. He then entered the newly created Bauhaus school, which aimed at the union of all the arts with modern architecture and with industry.
When Albers began to teach there beginning in 1923, it had become the most important school of design in Germany. Albers taught furniture design, drawing and calligraphy.
The school instilled in Albers a deep appreciation for, and concern with, technical achievement and sophistication as well as a lifelong interest in exploring abstraction.
At the Bauhaus, Albers rejected the emotional self-expression and representational style of his early work in favor of constructivist art built up by intellectual calculation and the use of simple geometric forms.
His working philosophy was to build carefully and meticulously with study materials from base of simple, fundamental forms too increasingly complex shapes.
When the school was forced to close in 1933 he left for America, continuing his advocacy of Bauhaus concepts for sixteen years at Black Mountain College, North Carolina, and later at Yale University.
From 1950 to 1958 he was chairman of the department of architecture and design at Yale University. Here he began the long series of painting and lithographs for which he is best known: Homage to the Square.
By the time of his death, he had made more than two hundred prints in a wide variety of mediums and had influenced generations of students in both Europe and the United States through his teachings.
Albers, Joseph (1888 – 1976)
- Albert Einstein Biography
"Let me tell you what I look like: pale face, long hair, and a tiny beginning of a paunch. In addition, an awkward gait, and a cigar in the mouth ..." Albert Einstein, 1920 BIOGRAPHY Albert...
- German Painter And Graphic Artist Max Beckman
Max Beckman was born in Leipzig on February 1884. He was one of Germany’s leading Expressionist painters. After his father early death, when Beckman was only 10, his family move to Brunswick and he was sent to a boarding school. Beckman studied at the...
- Finnish Architect Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto (1898-1976)
Architect and designer, whose early neoclassical style changed in the late 1920s to the international modern, in such buildings as Viipuri library and MIT Baker House residence hall. He was a native of Finland and spent most of his career there. Alvar...
- Cultural Anthropologist: Ralph Linton
Ralph Linton began his career as an archeologist, but later turn to cultural anthropology. His ethnographic fieldwork took him to Polynesia and Madagascar, as well as on archeological expeditions in Latin America and the United States. Ralph Linton was...
- Erlanger, Joseph (1874-1965)
Erlanger is a US physiologist and educator who, in collaboration with Herbert Gasser, developed techniques for recording nerve impulses using a cathode ray oscilloscope. In 1944 they shared the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for demonstrating...
Education
Albers, Joseph (1888 – 1976)
German born US painter, designer, and influential teacher of art. Joseph Albers was born to a family of artisans in Bottrop Germany and inherited a family tradition of careful, exact workmanship. He began his study of the art in 1908 and first experimented with printmaking in 1915.
Before 1920 Albers divided his time between teaching and art studies. He then entered the newly created Bauhaus school, which aimed at the union of all the arts with modern architecture and with industry.
When Albers began to teach there beginning in 1923, it had become the most important school of design in Germany. Albers taught furniture design, drawing and calligraphy.
The school instilled in Albers a deep appreciation for, and concern with, technical achievement and sophistication as well as a lifelong interest in exploring abstraction.
At the Bauhaus, Albers rejected the emotional self-expression and representational style of his early work in favor of constructivist art built up by intellectual calculation and the use of simple geometric forms.
His working philosophy was to build carefully and meticulously with study materials from base of simple, fundamental forms too increasingly complex shapes.
When the school was forced to close in 1933 he left for America, continuing his advocacy of Bauhaus concepts for sixteen years at Black Mountain College, North Carolina, and later at Yale University.
From 1950 to 1958 he was chairman of the department of architecture and design at Yale University. Here he began the long series of painting and lithographs for which he is best known: Homage to the Square.
By the time of his death, he had made more than two hundred prints in a wide variety of mediums and had influenced generations of students in both Europe and the United States through his teachings.
Albers, Joseph (1888 – 1976)
- Albert Einstein Biography
"Let me tell you what I look like: pale face, long hair, and a tiny beginning of a paunch. In addition, an awkward gait, and a cigar in the mouth ..." Albert Einstein, 1920 BIOGRAPHY Albert...
- German Painter And Graphic Artist Max Beckman
Max Beckman was born in Leipzig on February 1884. He was one of Germany’s leading Expressionist painters. After his father early death, when Beckman was only 10, his family move to Brunswick and he was sent to a boarding school. Beckman studied at the...
- Finnish Architect Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto (1898-1976)
Architect and designer, whose early neoclassical style changed in the late 1920s to the international modern, in such buildings as Viipuri library and MIT Baker House residence hall. He was a native of Finland and spent most of his career there. Alvar...
- Cultural Anthropologist: Ralph Linton
Ralph Linton began his career as an archeologist, but later turn to cultural anthropology. His ethnographic fieldwork took him to Polynesia and Madagascar, as well as on archeological expeditions in Latin America and the United States. Ralph Linton was...
- Erlanger, Joseph (1874-1965)
Erlanger is a US physiologist and educator who, in collaboration with Herbert Gasser, developed techniques for recording nerve impulses using a cathode ray oscilloscope. In 1944 they shared the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for demonstrating...