Armchair by Josef Albers on display as part of the "Jazz Age" exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States.

Josef Albers (1888-1976) was born ino Bottrop, Germany. He worked as a school teacher from 1908 to 1913 before returning to school and getting an education at the Königliche Kunstschule (Royal Art School) in Berlin from 1913 to 1915. In 1916, he enrolled at the Kunstgewerbschule (Art Work School) in Essen, where he began making prints. While there, he received a commission for a stained glass window in a local church. He moved to Munich in 1919 to study at the Königliche Bayerische Akademie der Bildenden Kunst (Royal Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts).

Albers enrolled in an introductory course taught by Johannes Itten at the Weimar Bauhaus in 1920. He joined the faculty there in 1922 as an instructor in stained glass. in 1923, Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus, asked him to teach the department of design's preliminary course in the principles of handicrafts. After the Bauhaus moved to Dessau in 1925, Albers began designing furniture and learning to work with glass.

After the Nazis closed the Bauhaus in 1933,Albers emigrated to the United States. Architect Philip Johnson arranged for Albers to be offered a job as head of a new art school at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Albers left Black Mountain in 1950 to head the department of design at Yale University, where he expanded the nascent graphic design program. He retired from teaching in 1958, and worked in a variety of disciplines until his death.

This chair, probably designed and constructed in 1927, has a veneer of walnut and maple surrounding what is most likley an elm core. The frame for the seat and back is ebonized fruitwood. The upholstery is modern.

1. CMAJazzAge