in which William Bailey meets Albers at Yale

Josef Albers at Yale

American artist William H. Bailey, excerpted from an Oral History Interview conducted during October 10 through December 5, 2012. Available online at the Archives of American Art—

[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!”

Wright or Wrong But Always Frank

© Roy R. Behrens

The following story, told by Bauhaus painter Josef Albers, is quoted in Achim Borchardt-Hume, ed., Albers and Moholy-Nagy: From the Bauhaus to the New World. New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2006, p. 109—

I remember when the Bauhaus exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York opened [in 1938]: very late, 11 or 12 when all were gone except a few from the Bauhaus. [Walter] Gropius, [Herbert] Bayer, [Albers' wife] Anni, me. Appeared Frank Lloyd Wright. In a Havelock [a cloth covering the back of the neck] and Wagnerian velvet cap (with a challenging older lady) telling us very loud, "You are all wrong." And who was it later saying: "Frank Lloyd Wright?—he is always frank, and not always right."

•••

From Edgar Tafel, About Wright: An Album of Recollections by Those Who Knew Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: John Wiley, 1993, p. 89—

[In the late 1940s] When he arrived at the foot of a hill, which was the proposed site [for a home about 30 miles from New York City, in Usonia], Wright emerged briskly from the car and led us up the steep hillside—the client, the Usonian development member, an ex-apprentice, and myself [a young builder named Robert Chuckrow] following. Wright pronounced the site fine for the house. He then proceeded some 50 feet farther, relieved his bladder, and came back to the group. There was a silence, nobody knowing just what to say. Then Wright pointed his cane at the spot where he had been and said, "Something meaningful will grow there."

•••

Also from the Tafel book is this story about a similar incident a few years later, on p. 68—

In the 1950s [American playwright] Arthur Miller and his then wife, Marilyn Monroe invited Wright to Connecticut to look at land they'd bought for a house. As the playwright recalls, "It was Marilyn's idea to bring Wright up, and one day the three of us drove up. Wright went to sleep in the back seat. I got a speeding ticket for going 48 in a 45 mph zone. It was a gray afternoon by the time we got up there. We had smoked salmon and a few cold things. Wright warned me against pepper but I had a little anyway. He and I walked up to the high ground where there was an old orchard above a pasture, which faces north but has an endless view over the hills. He took one look and then peed and said, 'Good spot,' and we walked down."

See also: Roy R. Behrens, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie (2016). 

 

Josef Albers: Gotten Himmel!

Rob Roy Kelly recalls Bauhaus teacher Josef Albers in R. Roger Remington, project director, Everything is a Work of Progress: The Collective Writings of Rob Roy Kelly on Graphic Design Education. Rochester NY: School of Design, Rochester Institute of Technology, 2002, p. 139—

When critiquing painting students [at Yale University], it was customary for Albers to ask the students what they were trying to do. If the student responded in terms of color, space or form, Albers engaged in meaningful discussion with the student. If the student responded in terms of feelings, or some esoteric rationale, Albers would throw up his arms and in a loud voice exclaim, "Gotten Himmel! [Good God in Heaven!] Don't show me your intestines." He would avoid that student for the next few weeks.