Josef Albers was a remarkable German artist and teach whose work, in both Europe and the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art educations programs of the 20th century.

Born in Bottrop, Westphalia, Germany, Albers studied art in Berlin, Essen, and Munich before enrolling as a student at the prestigious Weimar Bauhaus in 1920. He began teaching in the Department of Design in 1923, and was a full professor there in 1925.

With the closure of the Bauhaus under Nazi pressure in 1933, Albers emigrated to the United States, joined the faculty of black Mountain College, North Carolina, and then in 1950 Albers headed the Department of Design at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.