Anni Albers

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Anni Albers
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Anni AlbersUntitled Wallhanging, 1924Cotton and
silk, (66 13/16 x 39 1/2 in.)
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Illustration Anni Albers 1925
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Anni Albers, Wall hanging, 1926Silk. 189.9 x 122
cm (72 x 48 inches)
She was a student at the Bauhaus from 1922 where
she meet Josef Albers. She received her Diploma
in 1930, then was Assistant Director of weaving.
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Anni Albers, Black-White-Red, 1964Reproduction
of a 1927 original. Cotton and silk.175 x 118 cm
(68.875 x 46.437 inches)Bauhaus-Archiv, Berlin
Courage is an important factor in any creative
effort Unburdened by any considerations of
practical application, this uninhibited play with
materials results in amazing objects, strikingly
in their newness of conception in regard to the
use of color and composition elements-objects of
often barbaric beauty
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• One of the outstanding characteristics of the
  Bauhaus has been, to my mind, an unprejudiced
  attitude toward materials and their inherent
  capacities.
• Textiles of an unusual kind were developed and a
  new style was emerging.
• The Bauhaus artists were creating textiles that
  were purely artistic and had no practical
  purpose. As time change the focus of the Bauhaus
  changed. Only the creative mind can bring about
  the transformation of such rational recognition
  into a material form.
• Physical characteristics of materials now moved
  into center of interest. Light-reflection and
  sound absorption materials were developed.
  Unity became the keynote of work, and with it the
  desire to reach a wider public than before.

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Anni Albers, With Verticals, 1946155 x 118 cm
(61 x 46.5 inches)
Anni Albers is irrevocably associated with the
Arts and Crafts Movement. There she investigated
weaving materials and their properties
systematically, something reflected in her
teaching lifelong. Some saw her as using
unorthodox materials for weaving, a new idea then
but in sync with the Bauhaus philosophy.
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Anni Albers, Monte Alban, 1936Silk, linen, and
wool. 146 x 112 cm (57-3/8 x 44 inches)
Anni married Bauhaus artist Josef Albers in 1925
and in 1933 when the Bauhaus closed they
immigrated to the US,
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Anni Albers, Black-White-Gold I, 1950Cotton,
jute and metallic ribbon.63.5 x 48.3 cm (25 x 19
inches)
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Anni Albers, Development in Rose I, 1952Cotton
and hemp complex leno weave55.9 x 43.2 cm (22 x
17 inches)
Free experimentation can result in the
fulfillment of an inner urge to give form and to
give permanence to ideas The more
possibilities for attack the material offers in
its appearance and in its structural elements,
the more it can call forth imagination and
productiveness. Weaving is an example of a craft
which is many-sided.
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Anni Albers, Tikal, 1958Cotton, plain and leno
weave.76.2 x 58.42 cm (30 x 23 inches)
Josef was appointed Professor of Painting and
Anni Assistant Professor of Art, at the new and
progressive Black Mountain College in North
Carolina. While teaching at Black Mountain Anni
had worked on industrial prototypes for textiles
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Anni Albers, Variation on a Theme, 1958Cotton,
linen and plastic.87.6 x 77.5 cm (34.5 x 30.5
inches)
Independence presume a spirit of
adventurousness- a faith in ones own strength.
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Anni Albers, From the East, 1963Cotton and
plastic65.4 x 42 cm (25 x 16.5 inches)
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Anni Albers, Six Prayers, 1965Cotton, linen, and
bast. 185.4 x 50.8 cm (73 x 20 inches)Collection
of The Jewish Museum, New York.
In 1965 Anni Albers was commissioned by The
Jewish Museum to make an art work honoring the
six million Jewish victims of the Nazi
concentration camps. Six Prayers creates the
impression of a sea of humanityan infinity of
human lives. One feels the connections and
connectedness, the force of life itself. The six
panels seem to pulse with blood, to breathe, even
to evoke sound. The tone is suitably somber and
elegiac, befitting the tragedy that this
interlacing of thread and movement of abstract
forms so effectively commemorates.
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• Anni Albers fabric by Knoll TextilesAnni Albers
  began a three decades long collaboration with the
  internationally recognized design company Knoll
  in 1951. During the course of this partnership,
  Knoll released five of Anni's designs Track,
  Rail, Lattice, Jhet and Eclat. Originally
  designed in 1974 as an upholstery pattern, Anni
  Albers' Eclat, was first produced printed on a
  cotton/ linen ground in various scales and color
  combinations. Reintroduction into the market as
  part of Knoll's 60th anniversary archival
  collection celebration in June 2007, Eclat,
  renamed Eclat Weave, is now produced as a woven,
  rather than printed, upholstery.
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Anni Albers, DR XX, 1974Ink and Pencil on Paper.
JAAF 1994.10.5864.5 x 49.8cm (25.375 x 19.625
inches)

• In1949 they moved to NYC where Anni was the first
  weaver to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of
  Modern Art.
• In 1950 when Josef was appointed Chair of the
  Dept. of Design at Yale University, they move to
  CT. Anni began work as a freelance, designing
  textiles for Knoll International.

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Anni Albers, DR XX (B), 1975Red Ink on
Paper64.8 x 49.5cm (25.5 x 19.5 inches)

• Anni wrote two books, On Designing (1959) and On
  Weaving (1965).
• Josef died in 1976 and Anni in 1994 at the age of
  95.
• In addition to a number of honorary doctorates
  she was also awarded the Gold Medal of the
  American Crafts Council for uncompromising
  excellence.

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Anni Albers, Second Movement V,
1978Etching/Aquatint71 x 71 cm (28 x 28 inches)