Josef Albers Glass, Color, and Light

Book excerpt: Josef Albers (1888-1976), famous as a master at Germany's Bauhaus until 1933, and then a professor in American schools such as Yale University, influenced many young artists. His Homage to the Square series of paintings remains an important example of 20th-century art. Yet Albers's first great works - the glass pictures that he made in Germany beginning in 1921 - remain little known. Starting with found fragments of colored glass, and later employing a sophisticated sandblasting process, Albers created a new art form.