Quotes by Josef Albers

About Josef Albers:

Josef Albers was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the twentieth century.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

It's the only dish I serve my craziness for color in.

Josef Albers

Ah, the creative process is the same secret in science as it is in art. They are all the same absolutely.

Josef Albers

I was at the Royal Art School. That was a preparatory school specially for art teachers. You see, it was not so much for the development of artists. But we had there terribly stiff training.

Josef Albers

In visual perception a color is almost never seen as it really is - as it physically is. This fact makes color the most relative medium in art.

Josef Albers

Instead of art I have taught philosophy. Though technique for me is a big word, I never have taught how to paint. All my doing was to make people to see.

Josef Albers

It is not so for art in appreciation because art is concerned with human behavior. And science is concerned with the behavior of metal or energy. It depends on what the fashion is. Now today it's energy. It's the same soul behind it. The same soul, y...

Josef Albers

Traditionally art is to create and not to revive. To revive: leave that to the historians, who are looking backward.

Josef Albers

It was my family that wanted me to be a teacher. That was safe, you see. To be a painter was terrible.

Josef Albers

When we were in the seminary we got a stipend direct from the government and for that stipend we had an obligation to stick to our teaching job for five years.

Josef Albers

I went to the Academy and studied with Stuck who was then a big man. But didn't interest me. I didn't know that before me there was Kandinsky and Klee who had also studied with Stuck. He had a good name at that time.

Josef Albers

In Italy the artist is a god. Now if the artist is a god, the scientist is likewise a god.

Josef Albers

I love very much to draw animals.

Josef Albers

And I started with this: I have not painted at all my childhood. In fact, I never painted. But I helped my father who was a house painter and decorative painter. He made stage sets, he made glass paintings, he made everything.

Josef Albers

Any ground subtracts its own hue from the colors which it carries and therefore influences.

Josef Albers

I have invented the Thermometer style.

Josef Albers

I have taught my students not to apply rules or mechanical ways of seeing.

Josef Albers

I prefer to see with closed eyes.

Josef Albers

I was for years in the yellow period, you know.

Josef Albers

I've handled colour as a man should behave. You may conclude that I consider ethics and aesthetics as one.

Josef Albers

If you don't do it my way, I suggest you commit suicide.

Josef Albers

Author Bio

  • NameJosef Albers
  • DescriptionGerman-American artist and educator
  • BornMarch 19, 1888
  • DiedMarch 26, 1976
  • CountryGermany
  • ProfessionPainter; Artist
  • AwardsVerdienstkreuz 1. Klasse Des Verdienstordens Der Bundesrepublik Deutschland; Verdienstkreuz 1. Klasse Des Verdienstordens Der Bundesrepublik Deutschland