Josef
Albers
In 1920 at the age of 32, Josef Albers entered the Bauhaus, a school in Weimar that was committed to exploring the relationship between the arts and technological society and that emphasized the integration of architecture, fine art, and craft. . Albers initially joined the Bauhaus as a maker of stained glass and was charged with running the Bauhaus glass workshop. In 1923 he began to teach the Vorkurs, a basic design course. When the Bauhaus moved to Dessau in 1925, he became Bauhausmeister (professor), teaching alongside fellow artists Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. In addition to working in glass and metal, he designed furniture and typography. . After the Nazis forced the Bauhaus to close in 1933, Josef Albers and his wife Anni Albers secured positions at the experimental Black Mountain College, where he headed the painting program from 1933 to 1949. . Black Mountain College was a liberal arts college with an innovative and progressive curriculum that repositioned the study and practice of art from the margin to the center of the undergraduate program, and Albers's preliminary art course in materials and form was one of only two courses required of all students, regardless of major.
