Swiss artist, teacher and theorist. Itten studied with Adolf Hölzl, an early proponent of abstraction. In 1916, he founded moved to Vienna and established an art school in which he incorporated the teachings of educational theorists such as Fröbel, Pestalozzii and Montessori. Upon the suggestion of his wife, Alma Mahler, Gropius hired Itten to teach at the Bauhaus in 1919. Itten developed the Vorkurs or preliminary course, which introduced students to “issues of color, form and materials considered fundamental to all visual expression.” Disagreements with Gropius over the trajectory of the school led Itten to resign in 1922.