Albers Josef  

(1888-1976).


German painter and designer. After an academic training in Berlin, Essen and Munich, he studied at the Bauhaus and was later invited by Gropius to teach there. His 1st work included pictures in glass, furniture and abstracts. In 1933 he went to the U.S.A. and developed a new free abstract style (Etude in Red-Violet, 1935), later became interested in the manipulation of colour (his series of Variantes from 1947), and developed as the doyen of U.S. geometric abstractionists (Homage to the Square: in secret, 1962). He was always an experimental artist, his work being closely related to his practice as a teacher. In 1955 he became chairman of the Design Department at Yale Univ.