Josef Albers in Mexico

Name: Josef Albers in Mexico
Author: Unknown Author
ISBN: 9780892075362

by Unknown Author

157 pages2017Guggenheim Museum PublicationsISBN 9780892075362

Art Travel

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About this book

On his first trip to Mexico, in 1935, Josef Albers (1888-1976) encountered the magnificent architecture of ancient Mesoamerica. He later remarked in a letter to Vasily Kandinsky, a former colleague at the Bauhaus, "Mexico is truly the promised land of abstract art." With his wife, artist Anni Albers (1899- 1994), Josef Albers visited Mexico and other Latin American countries nearly a dozen times from 1935-67. They saw numerous archeological sites and monuments, especially in Mexico and Peru. On each visit, he took hundreds of black-and-white photographs of the pyramids, shrines, and sanctuaries at these sites, often grouping multiple images printed at various scales onto 8 by 10 inch sheets. Albers's experiences in Latin America offer an essential context for understanding his paintings and prints, particularly from his Homage to the Square and Variant/Adobe series, examples of which are featured in this show. Exhibition: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, United States (03.11.2017 - 18.02.2018).

Publication Details

Publisher: Guggenheim Museum Publications
Published: 2017
Pages: 157
ISBN: 9780892075362

About Unknown Author

German artist and designer; prof. at the Bauhaus. Albers trained as an art teacher at Königliche Kunstgewerbschule in nearby Essen, Germany. In 1919 he went to Munich, Germany, to study at the Königliche Bayerische Akademie der Bildenden Kunst, where he was a pupil of Max Doerner and Frank Stuck. In 1920 he attended the preliminary course (Vorkurs) at the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany, and was appointed a master in 1923 or 1925. In 1925 Albers moved with the Bauhaus to Dessau, Germany, where he was named master. From 1928 to 1930 he was also in charge of the furniture workshop. In 1932 he moved with the Bauhaus to Berlin. From 1933, after the closure of the Bauhaus in Berlin, until 1949, Albers taught at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. From 1948 to 1950 or from 1950 to 1958, Albers was professor and chairman of the Department of Design at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. He remained there as a visiting professor until 1960. After his retirement from Yale University, Albers continued to live in New Haven and to paint, monitor his own exhibitions and publications, write, lecture and work on large commissioned sculptures for architectural settings. *(Source: Union List of Artist Names - Getty Research Institute)*