If you know your history related to the Nazi party that was active in Germany from the 1920s to 1945, you are well aware that they suppressed and eliminated individuals and groups. Their tactics included harassment, intimidation, revenge, strong-armed diplomacy, propaganda, murder, and genocide just to name a few.
Part of their maniacal “all-things German” obsession was the belief that modern art of the time, as well as the artists who produced it, was un-German and “degenerate.” Hitler and the Nazis endorsed only art forms that promoted the virtues, morals and purity of the Aryan race. This usually manifested itself in the classical style of art (uncontaminated by Jewish influences), 19th century German realistic genre paintings, and a handful of Old Masters.
The Bauhaus art school that operated in three German cities in the 1920s and 30s was quickly in the Nazis’ sites to eliminate. Bauhaus developed avant-garde approaches to making art as well as efficient and beautiful design coupled with mass production. One could go on and on about the architects and visual artists that taught and studied there as well as the influence they had on 20th and 21st century art, design, and architecture. The faculty and students included many of the who’s who of the western creative world including Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Walter Gropius, Oscar Schlemmer, Lyonel Feininger, and Josef Albers. In 1933, the Nazis succeeded in closing the final Bauhaus school claiming the school was the center of Communist ideology.
Due to the dire circumstances, many of Germany’s greatest intellectuals and artists immigrated to other countries prior to WWII, including artists and educators Josef and Anni Albers. In 1933 Josef was invited to join the staff of Black Mountain College in North Carolina—another art school that had unorthodox (now normal) means of educating. Black Mountain staff and faculty included some of the United States’ most creative individuals including Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Jacob Lawrence, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Cy Twombly, Kenneth Noland, Ben Shahn, Ruth Asawa, Franz Kline, Arthur Penn, Buckminster Fuller, and many others who have made such a significant impact on the world. Even now, decades after its closing in 1957, the powerful influence of Black Mountain College continues to reverberate. (Incidentally, this school too came under scrutiny by another powerful government agency led by none other than J. Edgar Hoover, which likely expedited the avant-garde school’s closure in 1957.)
Both Josef and Anni continued their prolific artistic paths in the United States. Josef developed his color theories and his Homage to the Square series of paintings and prints which is represented in the OJAC collection. The museum’s volume of Interactions of Color, originally printed in 1963 during his tenure at Yale University, represents decades of research and experimentation on the part of Josef Albers and still is one of most valuable sources of color theory available.
Patrick Kelly, Executive Director and Curator
Day and Night VII, 1963 JOSEF ALBERS Serigraph on paper Gift of Bill Bomar 1985.032