Anni Albers
Encyclopedia
Annelise Albers (June 12, 1899 – May 9, 1994) was a German
-American
textile
artist and printmaker
. She is perhaps the best known textile artist of the 20th century.
. Her mother was from an aristocratic family in the publishing
industry and her father was a furniture
maker. Even in her childhood, she was intrigued by art and the visual world. She painted during her youth and studied under an impressionist
from 1916 to 1919, but was very discouraged from continuing after a meeting with artist Oskar Kokoschka
, who upon seeing a portrait of hers asked her sharply "Why do you paint?" She eventually decided to attend art school, even though the challenges for art students were often great and the living conditions harsh. Such a lifestyle sharply contrasted the affluent and comfortable living that she had been used to. Albers attended the Kunstgewerbeschule
in Hamburg
for only two months in 1920, though eventually made her way to the Bauhaus
at Weimar
in April 1922.
At Walter Gropius
's Bauhaus she began her first year under Georg Muche
and then Johannes Itten
. Women were barred from certain disciplines taught at the school, especially architecture, and during her second year, unable to get into a glass workshop with future husband Josef Albers
, Anni Albers deferred reluctantly to weaving. With her instructor Gunta Stölzl
, however, Albers soon learned to love weaving's tactile construction challenges.
In 1925 Anni and Josef Albers, the latter having rapidly become a "Junior Master" at the Bauhaus, were married. The school moved to Dessau
that year, and a new focus on production rather than craft at the Bauhaus prompted Albers to develop many functionally unique textiles combining properties of light reflection, sound absorption, durability, and minimized wrinkling and warping tendencies. She had several of her designs published and received contracts for wall hangings. For a time Albers was a student of Paul Klee
, and after Gropius left Dessau in 1928 Josef and Anni Albers moved into the teaching quarters next to both the Klees and the Kandinskys
. During this times the Alberses began their lifelong habit of travelling extensively, first through Italy
, Spain
, and to the Canaries
.
The Bauhaus at Dessau was closed in 1932 under pressure from the Nazi
party and moved briefly to Berlin, permanently closing a year later in August 1933. The Alberses were invited by Philip Johnson
to teach at the experimental Black Mountain College
in North Carolina
, arriving stateside in November 1933. Both taught at Black Mountain until 1949. During these years Anni Albers's weavings were shown throughout the US and she published many articles on textiles and design, this activity culminating in her 1949 show at the Museum of Modern Art
. The first of its kind for a texile artist at MoMA, the show began in the fall and then toured the US from 1951 until 1953, establishing Albers as the most well-known weaver of the day. During these years the Alberses also made many trips to Mexico
and throughout the Americas, becoming avid collectors of pre-Columbian
artwork.
After leaving Black Mountain in 1949, Josef Albers became the chair of the design department at Yale
, and Anni moved with him to Connecticut
, for the first time working from her home. After being commissioned by Gropius to design a variety of bedspreads and other textiles for Harvard
, and following the MoMA exhibition, Albers spent the 1950s working on mass-producible fabric patterns, creating the majority of her "pictorial" weavings, and publishing a half-dozen articles and a collection of her writings, On Designing. In 1963, while at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles
with Josef for a lecture of his, Albers was invited to try her hand at printmaking. She grew immediately fond of the technique, and thereafter gave up most of her time to lithography
and screen printing. She was invited back as a fellow to Tamarind in 1964, wrote an article for Britannica
in 1963, and then expanded on it for her second book, On Weaving, published in 1965.
Josef Albers died in 1976. Anni had two major exhibitions in Germany the same year, and a handful of exhibitions of her textile and print work over the next two decades, receiving a half-dozen honorary doctorates and lifetime achievement awards during this time as well, including the second American Craft Council
Gold Medal for "uncompromising excellence" in 1980. She continued to travel to Latin America and Europe, to make prints, and to lecture until her death on May 9, 1994, in Connecticut.
In 1971, the Albers founded the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, a not-for-profit organization they hoped would further "the revelation and evocation of vision through art." Today, this organization not only serves as the office Estate of both Josef Albers
and Anni Albers, but also supports exhibitions and publications focused on Albers works. The official Foundation building is located in Bethany, Connecticut and "includes a central research and archival storage center to accommodate the Foundation's art collections, library and archives, and offices, as well as residence studios for visiting artists." The U.S. copyright representative for the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation is the Artists Rights Society
. The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation is represented for unique work by The Pace Gallery
, New York and Waddington Galleries, London and for editioned work by Alan Cristea Gallery
, London.
Albers was inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame in 1994.
, paper, and cellophane
, for instance, to startlingly sublime effect.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
-American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
textile
Textile
A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...
artist and printmaker
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
. She is perhaps the best known textile artist of the 20th century.
Life
Albers was born Annelise Else Frieda Fleischmann in BerlinBerlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. Her mother was from an aristocratic family in the publishing
Publishing
Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...
industry and her father was a furniture
Furniture
Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
maker. Even in her childhood, she was intrigued by art and the visual world. She painted during her youth and studied under an impressionist
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
from 1916 to 1919, but was very discouraged from continuing after a meeting with artist Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka was an Austrian artist, poet and playwright best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes.-Biography:...
, who upon seeing a portrait of hers asked her sharply "Why do you paint?" She eventually decided to attend art school, even though the challenges for art students were often great and the living conditions harsh. Such a lifestyle sharply contrasted the affluent and comfortable living that she had been used to. Albers attended the Kunstgewerbeschule
Kunstgewerbeschule
A Kunstgewerbeschule was the old name for an advanced school of applied arts in German-speaking countries. The first such schools were opened in Kassel in 1867 and Berlin and Munich in 1868 with other German towns following. They are now merged into universities....
in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
for only two months in 1920, though eventually made her way to the Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
at Weimar
Weimar
Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...
in April 1922.
Walter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture....
's Bauhaus she began her first year under Georg Muche
Georg Muche
Georg Muche was a German painter, printmaker, architect, author, and teacher.-Early life and education:Georg Muche was born on 8 May 1895 in Querfurt, in the south of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany and grew up in the Rhön area...
and then Johannes Itten
Johannes Itten
Johannes Itten was a Swiss expressionist painter, designer, teacher, writer and theorist associated with the Bauhaus school...
. Women were barred from certain disciplines taught at the school, especially architecture, and during her second year, unable to get into a glass workshop with future husband Josef Albers
Josef Albers
Josef Albers was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the 20th century....
, Anni Albers deferred reluctantly to weaving. With her instructor Gunta Stölzl
Gunta Stölzl
Gunta Stölzl was a German textile artist who played a fundamental role in the development of the Bauhaus school’s weaving workshop. As the Bauhaus’s only female master she created enormous change within the weaving department as it transitioned from individual pictorial works to modern industrial...
, however, Albers soon learned to love weaving's tactile construction challenges.
In 1925 Anni and Josef Albers, the latter having rapidly become a "Junior Master" at the Bauhaus, were married. The school moved to Dessau
Dessau
Dessau is a town in Germany on the junction of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt. Since 1 July 2007, it is part of the merged town Dessau-Roßlau. Population of Dessau proper: 77,973 .-Geography:...
that year, and a new focus on production rather than craft at the Bauhaus prompted Albers to develop many functionally unique textiles combining properties of light reflection, sound absorption, durability, and minimized wrinkling and warping tendencies. She had several of her designs published and received contracts for wall hangings. For a time Albers was a student of Paul Klee
Paul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
, and after Gropius left Dessau in 1928 Josef and Anni Albers moved into the teaching quarters next to both the Klees and the Kandinskys
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
. During this times the Alberses began their lifelong habit of travelling extensively, first through Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, and to the Canaries
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
.
The Bauhaus at Dessau was closed in 1932 under pressure from the Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
party and moved briefly to Berlin, permanently closing a year later in August 1933. The Alberses were invited by Philip Johnson
Philip Johnson
Philip Cortelyou Johnson was an influential American architect.In 1930, he founded the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and later , as a trustee, he was awarded an American Institute of Architects Gold Medal and the first Pritzker Architecture...
to teach at the experimental Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College, a school founded in 1933 in Black Mountain, North Carolina, was a new kind of college in the United States in which the study of art was seen to be central to a liberal arts education, and in which John Dewey's principles of education played a major role...
in North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, arriving stateside in November 1933. Both taught at Black Mountain until 1949. During these years Anni Albers's weavings were shown throughout the US and she published many articles on textiles and design, this activity culminating in her 1949 show at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
. The first of its kind for a texile artist at MoMA, the show began in the fall and then toured the US from 1951 until 1953, establishing Albers as the most well-known weaver of the day. During these years the Alberses also made many trips to Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and throughout the Americas, becoming avid collectors of pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
artwork.
After leaving Black Mountain in 1949, Josef Albers became the chair of the design department at Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, and Anni moved with him to Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, for the first time working from her home. After being commissioned by Gropius to design a variety of bedspreads and other textiles for Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, and following the MoMA exhibition, Albers spent the 1950s working on mass-producible fabric patterns, creating the majority of her "pictorial" weavings, and publishing a half-dozen articles and a collection of her writings, On Designing. In 1963, while at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
with Josef for a lecture of his, Albers was invited to try her hand at printmaking. She grew immediately fond of the technique, and thereafter gave up most of her time to lithography
Lithography
Lithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...
and screen printing. She was invited back as a fellow to Tamarind in 1964, wrote an article for Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
in 1963, and then expanded on it for her second book, On Weaving, published in 1965.
Josef Albers died in 1976. Anni had two major exhibitions in Germany the same year, and a handful of exhibitions of her textile and print work over the next two decades, receiving a half-dozen honorary doctorates and lifetime achievement awards during this time as well, including the second American Craft Council
American Craft Council
The American Craft Council , was founded in 1943 as a national, nonprofit, educational organization to support and foster interest in the crafts in America. The council sponsers national craft shows, publishes American Craft magazine, and has an extensive awards program...
Gold Medal for "uncompromising excellence" in 1980. She continued to travel to Latin America and Europe, to make prints, and to lecture until her death on May 9, 1994, in Connecticut.
In 1971, the Albers founded the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, a not-for-profit organization they hoped would further "the revelation and evocation of vision through art." Today, this organization not only serves as the office Estate of both Josef Albers
Josef Albers
Josef Albers was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the 20th century....
and Anni Albers, but also supports exhibitions and publications focused on Albers works. The official Foundation building is located in Bethany, Connecticut and "includes a central research and archival storage center to accommodate the Foundation's art collections, library and archives, and offices, as well as residence studios for visiting artists." The U.S. copyright representative for the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation is the Artists Rights Society
Artists Rights Society
Artists Rights Society is a copyright, licensing, and monitoring organization for visual artists in the United States. Founded in 1987, ARS represents the intellectual property rights interests of over 50,000 visual artists and estates of visual artists from around the world .- Member Artists &...
. The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation is represented for unique work by The Pace Gallery
Pace Gallery
The Pace Gallery is a New York City-based exhibition space. It was founded in 1960 in Boston by Arne Glimcher.-PaceWildenstein:From 1993 until April 1, 2010, the gallery became "PaceWildenstein," a joint business venture between the Pace Gallery and Wildenstein & Co....
, New York and Waddington Galleries, London and for editioned work by Alan Cristea Gallery
Alan Cristea Gallery
Alan Cristea Gallery is a commercial art gallery on London's Cork Street, founded in 1995 by Alan Cristea. It is the largest publisher and distributor of prints in Europe.-History:...
, London.
Albers was inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame in 1994.
Artwork
Albers worked primarily in textiles and, late in life, as a printmaker. She produced numerous designs in ink washes for her textiles, and occasionally experimented with jewelry. Her woven works include many wall hangings, curtains and bedspreads, mounted "pictorial" images, and mass-produced yard material. Her weavings are often constructed of both traditional and industrial materials, not hesitating to combine juteJute
Jute is a long, soft, shiny vegetable fibre that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from plants in the genus Corchorus, which has been classified in the family Tiliaceae, or more recently in Malvaceae....
, paper, and cellophane
Cellophane
Cellophane is a thin, transparent sheet made of regenerated cellulose. Its low permeability to air, oils, greases, bacteria and water makes it useful for food packaging...
, for instance, to startlingly sublime effect.
By Anni Albers
- On Designing. The Pellango Press, New Haven, CT, 1959. Second edition, Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT, 1962. First paperback edition, Wesleyan University Press, 1971 (ISBN 0-8195-3024-7).
- On Weaving. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT, 1965.
On Anni Albers
- Anni Albers: Prints and Drawings. University Art Gallery, University of California, 1980.
- Weber, Nicholas Fox. The Woven and Graphic Art of Anni Albers. Essays by Nicholas Fox Weber, Mary Jane Jacob and Richard S. Field. Washington D.C. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985.
- Weber, Nicholas Fox, and Pandora Tabatabai Ashbaghi. Anni Albers. New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim FoundationSolomon R. Guggenheim FoundationThe Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is a nonprofit corporation founded in 1937 by philanthropist Solomon R. Guggenheim and artist Hilla von Rebay. The first museum established by the foundation was the "Museum of Non-Objective Art", which was housed in rented space on Park Avenue in New York....
and Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1999. - Brenda Danilowitz, ed. Anni Albers: Selected Writings on Design. University Press of New EnglandUniversity Press of New EnglandThe University Press of New England , located in Lebanon, New Hampshire and founded in 1970, is a university press consortium including Brandeis University, Dartmouth College , the University of New Hampshire, and Northeastern University...
, 2001 (ISBN 0-8195-6447-8). - Anni Albers. Solomon R. Guggenheim FoundationSolomon R. Guggenheim FoundationThe Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is a nonprofit corporation founded in 1937 by philanthropist Solomon R. Guggenheim and artist Hilla von Rebay. The first museum established by the foundation was the "Museum of Non-Objective Art", which was housed in rented space on Park Avenue in New York....
, 2003 (ISBN 0-89207-272-5).
External links
- The Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, extensive official site
- Alan Cristea Gallery
- Oral history interview with Anni Albers, 1968 July 5 from the Smithsonian Archives of American ArtArchives of American ArtThe Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 16 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washington, D.C...
- Anni Albers papers, 1924-1969 from the Archives of American Art