Josef Albers
Biography
After his academic training in Berlin, Essen and Munich, Josef Albers, born in Bottrop in 1888, began his studies at the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1920. As early as 1923, he was appointed head of the glass painting workshop there - the beginning of a very successful career as an art teacher. In the following decade, he created numerous designs for furniture, glass and metal utensils in addition to glass paintings. Color hardly played a role at this time. Probably inspired by Theo van Doesburg (“De Stijl”), the artist created objectively clear arrangements that were independent of nature. Individual themes and subjects are varied again and again - an essential continuum in Albers' work. When the Bauhaus was closed by the National Socialists in 1933, he was appointed to Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina, and moved to the USA. His work as an art teacher continued until his retirement as director emeritus of the art school of the Institute of Fine Arts at Yale University in 1958. A few years later, he published his important essay “Interaction of Color” (1963), which was republished in two volumes in 2013. His move to the United States marked the beginning of a new period in the artist's work. Josef Albers experimented with linear forms that broke through the certainty of geometric order, now also incorporating color into his compositions. This “geometric surrealism” (Werner Spies) challenges the sensory perception of the viewer, who as an individual should experience the work of art and recreate it again and again. Series such as “Homage to the Square” are about the interaction of colors, which can change their effect infinitely through mere juxtaposition. As a teacher and as an artist, Albers was a trailblazer for an entire generation of American artists. Op art, kinetic art, color field painting and new abstraction are influenced by his work.
Josef Albers, who also became internationally known as an artist with the exhibition “The Responsive Eye” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, received numerous honors. He was awarded an honorary doctorate a total of fourteen times, and in 1968 he received the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit “Pour le Mérite”. In 1955 and 1968, he was represented at documenta 1 and documenta 4. In 1970, the city of Bottrop awarded him honorary citizenship. A museum center is opened there in 1976, named “Quadrat” in reference to the artist's work, and finally expanded in 1983 to include the Josef Albers Museum (now the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat). In 1971, the Metropolitan Museum in New York honored Albers as the first living artist with a large-scale retrospective. This was followed in 1988 by a posthumous retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. To this day, numerous museums and institutions around the world present Josef Albers' important artistic work, including the Villa Stuck in Munich (1989/90), the Columbia Museum of Art (1991/92),
The Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin (1994), the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome (1994), the IVAM Centre Julio González in Valencia (1994/95), the Kunstmuseum Bonn (1998), the Kunstmuseum Bern (1998/99), the Bauhaus Foundation, Dessau (1998/99), the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York (2004/05), the Tate Modern in London (2006), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (2006/2007), the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid (2006/07), the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts in Taiwan (2010), the Museum of Modern Art in New York (2016/17) and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice (2018).
Museum and single exhibitions (selection)
2023
Chromophobia, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, United States
2022
Josef Albers: Huldigung an das Quadrat, Quadrat Bottrop - Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop, Germany
2021
Josef Albers Formulations: Articulation, Boston University Art Gallery (BUAG), Boston, MA, United States
Josef Albers: Structural Constellations (Online), Krakow Witkin Gallery, Boston, MA, United States
2020
Josef Albers: Homage to the Square, North Carolina Museum of Ar, tRaleigh, NC, United States
2019
Josef Albers - Anatomia di Omaggio al quadrato, Museo Civico Villa dei Cedri, Bellinzona, Switzerland
100 Jahre Bauhaus: Der junge Josef Albers. Aufbruch in die Moderne, Quadrat Bottrop - Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop, Germany
Learning to See: Josef Albers, Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ, United States
Josef Albers: Variants, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD, United States
2018
Josef Albers in Mexico, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy
Josef Albers, Raum für Kunst im Lindenhof, Raabs an der Thaya, Austria
Master Class: Josef Albers, Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, NY, United States
2017
Josef Albers in Latin America, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, United States
2016
One and One Is Four: The Bauhaus Photocollages of Josef Albers, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City, United States
2015
Josef Albers - Obra Gráfica, Galeria Pilar Serra, Madrid, Spain
2014
Josef Albers. Grafik und Prozess, Quadrat Bottrop - Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop, Germany
Josef Albers - Minimal Means Maximum Effect, Henie Onstad Art Centre, Høvikodden, Norway
Josef Albers: proceso y grabado (1916-1976), Museo de Arte Abstracto Español, CuencaSpain
Josef Albers: First and Last. Homage to the Square 1950 – 1976, Quadrat Bottrop - Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop, Germany
Josef Albers: process and engraving (1916-1976), Museu Fundación Juan March, Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Josef Albers - minimal means, maximum effec, tFundación Juan March, Madrid, Spain
2013
Kunst als Erfahrung. Josef Albers als Lehrer - der Maler und seine Schüler, Quadrat Bottrop - Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop, Germany
Josef Albers - Experiments in Color, Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, NC, United States
Josef Albers, Fondazione Stelline, Milan, Italy
Learning To See. Josef Albers And The Interaction Of Color, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA), Scottsdale, AZ, United States
Josef Albers - Interaction of color, Künstlerhaus Wien, Vienna, Austria
Josef Albers: Geometries, Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, United States
2012
Josef Albers en Amérique, Peintures sur papier, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
2011
Josef Albers in Amerika - Malerei auf Papier, Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel, Switzerland
Josef Albers, Fondazione Modena Arti Visive, Modena, Italy
Louisiana – on paper Josef Albers, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark
Josef Albers Formulation: Articulation, 1972, Snite Research Center in the Visual Arts, Notre Dame, IN, United States
Josef Albers - Formulation: Articulation, Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, NY, United States
Malerei auf Papier. Josef Albers in Amerika, Quadrat Bottrop - Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop, Germany
2010
Malerei auf Papier - Josef Albers in Amerika, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany
Josef Albers: Minimal Means, Maximum Effect, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Art, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan
Josef Albers: Innovation and Inspiration, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, United States