Background

Anni Albers was born on June 12, 1899 in Berlin, German Empire (present-day Berlin, Germany). She was a daughter of Siegfried Fleischmann, a furniture maker, and Toni (Ullstein) Fleischmann.

Education

During the period from 1916 to 1919, Anni studied art under the tutelage of Martin Brandenburg, who was a German Impressionist painter, draftsman and graphic artist. Later, in 1922, Albers enrolled at Bauhaus in Weimar, where she remained until 1929. At Bauhaus, Georg Muche and Johannes Itten were among her mentors.

Also, Anni received several honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees from different educational institutions, including Maryland Institute College of Art (1972), Philadelphia College of Art (present-day University of the Arts) (1976), Rhode Island School of Design (1990) and others.

Career

In the mid-1920's, Anni served as a teacher at Bauhaus in Dessau. In 1931, she was appointed a head of Bauhaus weaving workshop, a post Anni held till 1932. In 1933, Albers was invited to teach at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, a position she held till 1949. During these years, her design works, including weavings, were shown throughout the United States.

In 1949, Anni became the first designer to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The exhibition was a highlight of Anni's distinguished and celebrated career. During that time, she also made many trips to Mexico and the North and South America, and became an avid collector of pre-Columbian artwork.

During the 1950's, Anni worked on mass-producible fabric patterns, creating the majority of her "pictorial" weavings. She also published articles and a collection of her writings, entitled "On Designing" (1959). In the mid-1960's, Anni experimented with print media. In 1965, she published her second book "On Weaving".

In 1971, Anni and her husband Josef established "Josef and Anni Albers Foundation". The organization supports exhibitions and publications, focused on Albers works.

During her lifetime, Anni held many exhibitions, including two major exhibitions in Germany in 1976. She continued to design, make prints and lecture at different educational institutions till the end of her life.

Achievements

• Anni Albers was one of the best known textile artists of the twentieth century. Her design work and writings on design helped establish Design History as a serious area of academic study.
  
  She received several awards, including Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award (1980) and American Craft Council Gold Medal (1981). In 1994, Albers was inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame.
  
  Anni's works are kept in public collections of different museums around the world, including Die Neue Sammlung in Munich, Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Tate Britain in London, Museum of Modern Art in New York and others.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Anni Albers: On Designing 1959
  • Anni Albers: On Weaving 1965

• design

  • Sunny

  • Black-White-Gray

  • Intersecting

  • Variation on a Theme

  • Thickly Settled

  • Tikal

  • Red and Blue Layers

  • Wall Hanging

  • Wall Hanging

• painting

  • Orchestra III

  • Double Impression IV

  • Red Meander II

  • Second Movement V

Views

Quotations: "Being creative is not so much the desire to do something as the listening to that which wants to be done: the dictation of the materials."

"A longing for excitement can be satisfied without external means within oneself: for creating is the most intense excitement one can come to know."

Connections

Anni married Josef Albers, an artist and educator, in 1925.

Father:

Siegfried Fleischmann

Mother:

Toni (Ullstein) Fleischmann

husband:

Josef Albers

mentor:

Martin Brandenburg

mentor:

Georg Muche

mentor:

Johannes Itten

References

• Anni Albers
  2018
• Anni Albers: Notebook 1970–1980
  2017
• Anni Albers (Guggenheim Museum Publications)
  1999
• Anni Albers: Design Pioneer
  2010