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| Josef Albers at Yale |
[While attending Cooper Union in 1953, and looking for an alternative school, someone] told me about Josef Albers and Yale. He said, "You might try going up there, because this man Albers has just arrived, and he’s changed everything there. And it should be a really interesting place.”
And so, I took a train up to Yale—to New Haven. I was told that I couldn't see Albers because I didn't have an appointment. Just then Albers opened the door to his office and said, “Do you want to see me, boy?” I said, “Yes.”…
I had this same little envelope of drawings, and a few black and white photographs of paintings that I had done. He showed me into his office, which was a spartan room with a door for the desk, and sawhorses holding the door up. Plain straight chairs, a huge plant by the window, glorious light coming in through the window, and this little man dressed [in] various grays, I remember. A gray suit, another kind of woven gray tie—probably woven by [his wife] Anni [Albers]—and a white shirt. Silver hair coming sort of Hitler-like across his brow. He looked at the things, and he proceeded to give me the most ferocious critique I'd ever had in my life. I was stunned, because people had always been very nice to me. They’d all agreed—whatever other things that were against me, yes, I was talented. He wouldn't grant me even talent! He just ripped into things! And then, here and there, he'd say, “But this is—here you see something! And here.”
So I was in this stunned state, when things calmed down. And he asked me about my life, and about the war, and what I’d been doing, and my ambitions and so on. And finally he said, “Okay, I take you!” I hadn't been applying. I mean, I just was there to find out about things. He said, “I take you.” I said, “Wait a minute! How much does it cost?” He said, “I don't know—ask the secretary!”
