Josef Albers

Josef Albers trained as a teacher before joining the Bauhaus in 1920. He worked across glass, furniture, typography, photography and other media, became a Bauhaus master, and married the textile artist Anni Fleischmann in 1925. When the Bauhaus closed under Nazi pressure in 1933, he accepted an invitation to teach at the newly founded Black Mountain College in North Carolina.

At Black Mountain, Albers developed an experimental programme based on direct engagement with materials, form and visual perception. He later headed Yale’s Department of Design and became internationally known for the Homage to the Square paintings and the book Interaction of Color. His appearance in These Blue Mountains connects the novel’s German émigré story to the documented creation of an influential modernist community in North Carolina.