Josef AlbersJosef Albers

Abstract PainterAbstract Painter

1888-19761888-1976

ab·stract artab·stract art

Art that does not attempt to Art that does not attempt to represent external, recognizable represent external, recognizable reality but seeks to achieve its reality but seeks to achieve its effect using shapes, forms, colorseffect using shapes, forms, colors

Josef Albers was born in

Germany. As a young man he

became an elementary

teacher.

He became an art teacher at the famous Bauhaus Art School.

His first designs were painted on glass.

He became a master of black and white prints.

These are some of his prints.

He loved playing with line and shape.

When the school was forced to close by the Nazis, Albers fled to the United States.

Albers' artwork showed ideas and emotions through simple geometric shapes and ordinary colors.

He became interested in the way

colors made a person feel.

He is sometimes called "the

square man“.

Josef Albers discovered his signature motif, or symbol, the square, when he was sixty-two years old.

Homage to the Square.

Rather than mixing, he used

paints directly

from the tube.

Josef painted more than 1,000 paintings in

his series of paintings based on the Square.

He experimented with color. Each painting has a different color combination.

Later on he experimented with rectangles too.

He even tried using other geometric shapes.

What shapes can you find?

Josef Albers is Josef Albers is remembered remembered most for his most for his paintings of paintings of squares of squares of

different colors.different colors.