Biographical Sketch

Josef and Anni Albers, lifelong artistic adventurers, were among the leading pioneers of twentieth-century modernism. Josef Albers (1888 – 1976) was an influential teacher, writer, painter, and color theorist —now best known for the Homages to the Square he painted between 1950 and 1976 and for his innovative 1963 publication Interaction of Color. Anni Albers (1899 – 1994) was a textile designer, weaver, writer, and printmaker who inspired a reconsideration of fabrics as an art form, both in their functional roles and as wallhangings. Her seminal text On Weaving was published in 1965. The couple met at the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany in 1922. They were married in Berlin in 1925.

In November of 1933, Josef and Anni Albers were invited to the USA when Josef was asked to make the visual arts the center of the curriculum at the newly established Black Mountain College in North Carolina. They remained at Black Mountain until 1949.

In 1950, the Alberses moved to Connecticut. From 1950 to 1958, Josef Albers was chairman of the Department of Design at the Yale University School of Art. There, and as guest teacher at art schools throughout North and South America and in Europe, he trained a whole new generation of art teachers. Following Josef’s death in 1976, Anni Albers helped oversee her husband’s legacy while expanding her own printmaking and textile design until her death in 1994.

For a more detailed biography go to Josef & Anni Albers.