FRANK A. HOROWITZ

Josef Albers: To Open Eyes A fascinating study of the revolutionary painter and teacher, Josef Albers.Frederick A Horowitz and Brenda Danilowitz First book to focus on how the legendary artist/educator Josef Albers (1888-1976) influenced generations of artists, including Donald Judd, Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Mangold Incorporates rare archival material, including behind-the-scenes documentary photography of Albers' life and teaching methods at the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College and Yale Reveals Albers' formative philosophies on art, life and the nature of perception through first-hand accounts of more than 150 students and colleagues over more than 40 years Features lush colour reproductions of Albers' classic 1963 Interaction of Color taken from original press proofs Josef Albers (1888-1976) has long been admired for his progressive vision as an artist and designer who blurred distinctions between fine and applied art, but rarely has his influence as a teacher been examined with such depth and detail. The German-born artist/educator was a remarkable classroom performer whose colorful language, wit, and dramatic flair held his students spellbound and turned his lessons into high adventure. Whether at the Bauhaus in prewar Germany, Black Mountain College in rural North Carolina during the 1930s and 1940s, or at Yale in the 1950s, Albers-the-teacher was driven by one thing: the desire to open his students' eyes to a different way of perceiving art and, ultimately, life. The son of a house painter and decorator in Germany's northwest Ruhr region, Albers grew up surrounded by artisans and learned at an early age to paint, cut stone, and craft wood. Although his ambition had always been to become an artist, Albers entered teacher's training college at his father's insistence and spent his first professional year teaching six- to fourteen-year-olds in a single-classroom school. Later experience at the Koniglichen Kunstschule in Berlin's rough-and-tumble Alexanderplatz neighborhood and exposure to the city's hothouse cultural atmosphere inspired the young Albers to merge his love for art and education--a decision that would have an impact on generations of artists to come in both Europe and the U