Born on March 19, 1888 in Bottrop, Germany, Josef Albers was instrumental in bringing the tenets of European modernism, particularly those associated with the Bauhaus, to America. His legacy as a teacher of artists, as well as his extensive theoretical work proposing that color, rather than form, is the primary medium of pictorial language, profoundly influenced the development of modern art in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s.

Works by Josef Albers are found in major private and public collections, including Whitney Museum of American Art, Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Morgan Library and Museum, and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Smithsonian American Art Museum and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Tate Modern, British Museum, and Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung, Berlin; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg; and Museum Ludwig Köln, Cologne.