X
c
Open Thursdays 11am–9pm | Reserve tickets now
Contact Calendar Museum Store S
Asheville Art Museum

Asheville Art Museum

North Carolina museum exhibiting 20th century American art

Explore
D

Exhibitions

Collection

Learn

Calendar

Perspective Café

Museum From Home

Museum Store

Blog

About Us

Learn more about current and upcoming exhibitions.

EXPLORE EXHIBITIONS
>
Visit
D

Plan Your Visit

Tours

Perspective Café

Facility Rental

smARTguide

About Asheville

c

Museum Hours:

Open daily 11am–6pm. Late-night Thursdays until 9pm; closed Tuesdays. Pre-purchased online tickets are encouraged; walk-in tickets are also available.
m

Museum Location:

2 South Pack Square
Asheville, NC 28801
P

Museum Contact:

828.253.3227
mailbox@ashevilleart.org
Support
D

Membership

Gala 2023

Give

Collectors’ Circle

Volunteer

Careers + Internships

Museum Members receive 12 months of free general admission.
BECOME A MEMBER
>
Become A Member!
Home > Blog > Featured Acquisition: Adapted by Josef Albers
Josef Albers, AdaptedJosef Albers, Adapted, 1944, woodcut on paper, 8 ½ × 9 ⁵⁄₈ inches. Museum purchase with funds provided by Rick & Maggi Swanson, Kathy Dambach, and Charles & Jennifer Riner. © The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Profile

Featured Acquisition: Adapted by Josef Albers

October 1, 2020

The Asheville Art Museum is grateful for the contributions from Rick & Maggi Swanson, Kathy Dambach, and Charles & Jennifer Riner for the purchase of Adapted, a woodcut on paper by Josef Albers created in 1944 during his time at Black Mountain College (BMC) in North Carolina. This woodcut was printed at Biltmore Press in Asheville. Best known for his later geometric patterns involving straight lines, this early work by Albers shows him playing with curvilinear lines and organic forms.

The Museum is fortunate to hold editions of Josef Albers’s Multiplex B and Multiplex C, both made while he was teaching at BMC and printed at Biltmore Press in 1948. The Museum also has in its Collection the Formulation : Articulation portfolios, which demonstrate Albers’s pursuit of ideas he began exploring at BMC, as well as his career-long study of the square form and the interaction of color. Adapted is the earliest work by Albers currently in the Collection. The organic forms printed in black ink in Adapted offer a contrast to the structured geometry of the similarly printed Multiplex works, and offer an opportunity to compare and contrast the progression of the Artist’s work while teaching at BMC and in the period beyond.

Josef Albers was born in Bottrop, Germany, in 1888. In 1905 he enrolled in a seminary and began teaching elementary school in 1908. He created his first abstract painting in 1913 while enrolled at the Royal Art School in Berlin. He produced his first lithographs and woodcuts at the School of the Applied Arts in Essen. In 1920 Albers gave up his position as a teacher in order to become a student at the Bauhaus in Weimar. After taking preliminary courses, Albers began to make “glass pictures” by fusing colorful glass together into geometric patterns. On the strength of his glass work, he was asked to organize the glass workshop. Within three years Albers became a member of the faculty at the Bauhaus, and between 1928 and 1929 he was the head of the furniture workshop at its location in Dessau. When the Bauhaus moved to Berlin in 1932, Albers was placed in charge of the preliminary courses. Twenty of his glass pictures were included in the Exhibition of Bauhaus Masters of 1929. In 1933 the Bauhaus was closed by the Nazis and, on the recommendation of Philip Johnson at the Museum of Modern Art, Albers was hired to head the art department at BMC. He and his wife Anni Albers served as faculty at BMC until 1949. Josef Albers was named Director of the Department of Design at Yale University in 1950, where he remained until retirement. Albers was noted as an important teacher, artist, and color theorist. His book Interaction of Color was published in 1963 and is still used in college art classes around the world.

^
Back
to top
Asheville Art Museum

Sign up for e-News!

f
t
i

Explore

  • Exhibitions
  • Collection
  • Learn
  • Calendar
  • Store
  • Blog
  • About Us

Visit

  • Plan Your Visit
  • Perspective Café
  • Virtual Visits
  • Facility Rental
  • Accessibility
  • Program & Event Tickets
  • About Asheville
  • Contact

Support

The Asheville Art Museum's vision is to transform lives through art.
  • Membership
  • Give
  • Benefit Events
  • Collectors’ Circle
  • Volunteer
  • Careers
  • Internships

Location & Hours

c

Museum Hours:

Open daily 11am–6pm. Late-night Thursdays until 9pm; closed Tuesdays. Pre-purchased online tickets are encouraged; walk-in tickets are also available.
m

Museum Location:

2 South Pack Square
Asheville, NC 28801
P

Museum Contact

828.253.3227
mailbox@ashevilleart.org
© 2023 Asheville Art Museum
For Press
>
Copyright Information
>
Contact
>