Anni Albers: biography, Josef, Bauhaus, textile art

THEn an austere portrait from 1927, the profile of Anni Albers he sported short hair as a hymn to simplicity. Recently married to Josef Albers, she obtained the Bauhaus diploma in 1930 thanks to an ingenious reflective and sound-absorbing fabric. With an innovative approach and unusual materials, Anni helped consolidate textiles as an art formbecoming one of the most important textile artists and designers of the twentieth century.

The undisputed celebrity of the painter Josef Albers, who he followed and supported throughout his life, was never a distraction from the commitment he brought to his practice. To find out, the biography Anni Albers: A Life (Yale University Press) It tells a lot about this artistintertwining names and facts from the 20th century, thanks to dialogues with the author Nicholas Fox Weber (Director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation) held from the 70s until Anni’s death in 1994.

Anni Albers, from textile work to the Bauhaus

She, Annelise Fleischmann, was born in 1899 to a wealthy Jewish family: His mother belonged to the proprietary branch of the Ullstein Verlag publishing house, the largest in Germany. Her artistic skills were encouraged with a private art teacher and at 17 her mother took her to meet her favorite artist, Oskar Kokoschkato hire him as a teacher. He questioned his vocation. When Anni started the Hamburg School of Applied Arts, women were allowed to enroll in art academies… but with limited access to courses. There she approached textile work, unsure whether or not to consider it “something for girls”.

Shortly after leaving school, discovered an innovative new institution in Weimar, the Bauhausfounded by the architect Walter Gropius as a community of artistic disciplines. Between architecture and sculpture, painting, furniture and craftsmanship, for Gropius there was no difference between an artist and a craftsman. So Anni left her wealthy home to move into a house without hot water. Her first application was rejected, but on her second she was accepted into Bauhaus thanks to the help of a student 11 years older than her: Josef Albers. They married in 1925.

Between travels and tapestries

Complicating his work and social life was a neuropathy that weakened his legs. He never danced with Josef although, with an awkward gait, he faced strenuous excursions in their future 14 trips to Mexico (over 30 years, they collected approximately 1,400 pre-Columbian objects).

Later, she admitted that this limitation had prevented her from taking almost all courses, except weaving, which she found uninteresting. But he soon became passionate about it. He learned to use various looms, weaving tapestries and designing fabrics for furniture and interiors, also made with industrial production techniques. When Josef became a teacher, for a period Anni was responsible for the weaving workshop at Bauhaus. When presenting themselves, they avoided the look of exuberant artists: with sober elegance and a sense of balance, they reflected the precision of their works. Anni collected white blouses and, later, he purchased Chanel jewels in Biarritz, whom he defined as the greatest artist of the 20th century.

Anni and Josef Albers, together in New York

The Bauhaus moved out of Berlin. When it was closed under Nazi pressure in 1933, at 34 and 45 the Albers found themselves without work, in an atmosphere now hostile to abstract art. The architect is a lover of his fabrics Philip Johnson he wanted to meet her: Would you and Josef have wanted to go to America? Although recently baptized, fearing for her Jewish origins she accepted. Johnson, knowing that the fledgling, experimental Black Mountain College was looking for an exceptional art teacher, suggested Josef: he didn’t know English, but when Black Mountain offered roles to both of them, they left for North Carolina without knowing it: they then admitted that, for them, it could have been in the Philippines…

Even in that progressive institute, teaching was informal, without grades and attentive to collaboration, community life, outdoor activities and the arts (as fundamental as the canonical subjects). Josef became the college’s first art teacher, while Anni started a weaving workshop. «As often happens, what seemed like a disaster turned out to be a saving moment» he commented when speaking of their escape from Europe. Much of his work had been lost or ruined on the journey. So at Black Mountain he encouraged students to look for materials in the fields, to imagine living in ancient Peru with limited means, having to build a loom. As he wrote in an essay: «We are overloaded with information… We must come down to earth from the clouds and experience the most real thing that exists, matter.”

The first weaver on display

In 1949 the Albers moved to New York, where Anni was the first weaver to have a solo exhibition at the MoMa Museum. Josef obtained an excellent position at Yale University. Anni divided her time between her looms and the care of their simple new home, while her husband worked on his famous paintings Homage to the Square. Anni was also at the peak of his career: after many exhibitions and fabrics created for famous synagogues, he successfully dedicated himself to graphic works.

Over time, Anni got over Josef’s numerous betrayalsperhaps considering them “normal” given his slight physical impairment: it seems that Josef had even asked her for help, to ward off an overly insistent lover. According to Fox Weber, who was very close to them, they did not have children, perhaps for fear of passing on Anni’s pathology or, more likely, to dedicate all their energy to art. But it was still a great love.

Hospitalized on his birthday, Josef died in 1976. Always strong, after a tumor and various difficulties, she joined him 18 years later. They had already found a house near the cemetery because, as Anni explained: “Whoever died first could pick up the mail, drive to the cemetery, park next to the grave and read the mail, mentally consulting with the other.”