An elementary school teacher for twelve years, and an instructor at the Bauhaus from 1923 until 1933, Josef Albers was one of the most influential artist-educators to immigrate to the United States during the 1930s.

"It is not my aim to paint about the Negro in America in terms of propaganda . . . [but] the life of my people as I know it, passionately and dispassionately as Breughel.

The daughter of a furniture manufacturer, Anni Albers (née Fleischmann) was born in Berlin. After studying art with a private tutor, and then with impressionist painter Martin Brandenburg, she continued her training at the School of Applied Art in Hamburg and the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau.