Josef Albers (1888-1976) was an renowned designer and educator in addition to being one of the most influential abstract painters of the twentieth century. Albers was born in Bottrop, Germany, and enrolled at the Weimar Bauhaus as a student in 1920, eventually becoming a faculty member in 1922. In 1933, Ludwig and Anni Albers moved to North Carolina, where they established the Black Mountain College art department. Josef was offered to supervise the newly founded department of design at Yale University School of Art, thus the Alberses moved to New Haven, Connecticut, in 1950. Albers left teaching in 1958, just before the release of his seminal work Interaction of Color (1963).