Josef Albers

Nesting Tables, 1926/1927 (design)

In 1922 Josef Albers came to the Bauhaus at the age of 32 and became technical director of the glass workshop as a Bauhaus journeyman. Before he had studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule (arts-and-crafts school) in Essen from 1916-19 under Jan Thorn Prikker who was already almost entirely committed to working with glass by this time, and introduced Albers to this art. At the Bauhaus Albers’ principle was to instill the idea of deploying available resources economically, using newspapers among other things to show his students how to think constructively and to prefer handling materials skillfully instead of just working on a  beautiful result. As well as teaching, Albers designed furniture, cutlery and crockery, including for example the occasional tables now known as Nesting Tables (1926/27).