Anni albers (art textile design) by ART SF BLOG

f'^f.>'

j,.\

-f

* r.

* *

^ tt

•• -

V-

*1Vv>V^^' <

«.• ) -•

^i -

*;t

%-f ijT

1* r .' .i

•f-.-.^

\ \

'''li.

Anni Albers

'^/i

By Nicholas Fox Weber and

""f>'

V^v'^'a

'#1 1

Pandora Tabatabai Asbaghi *

'.4' -r. ''">

,-»' *

:>'^A ±_i

With

contributions by Kelly Feeney,

Jean-Paul Leclercq, and Virginia Gardner Troy

Anni Albers (1899-1994) foremost

K--

considered the

designer of our century. Albers,

textile

one of the

central figures of the

Workshop

at the

effect

Weaving

Bauhaus, had an enormous

worldwide on the design of yard materials

;

es?:

and on the creation of singular weavings and wall hangings. This catalogue, accompanying a centennial retrospective of her work, brings to light a

wide selection of her weavings, drapery

materials,

and wall coverings

as well as the

••'

preparatory studies and graphic works that

accompanied them. In addition

to full-color

reproductions of Albers's most important works, it

also includes

documentation of scores of

her highly influential textile designs. Scholars Virginia Gardner Troy and Jean-Paul Leclerq

explore the significance of her

work

in the -

context of the history of Western and pre-

Columbian

textile design;

Kelly Feeney discusses

her important commission of ark panels for

Temple Emanu-El

in Dallas;

and Albers scholar

Nicholas Fox Weber provides an insightful

memoir of the

artist's

the graphic

arts.

chronology

details

and as

career in

exploration late in

comprehensive

Anni

famed painter and

artist

Albers's fascinating life

Germany and

an independent

life

illustrated

and

America, both

as the wife

of the

instructor Josef Albers.

f^Ji

*•/-

.'J'

'"::

A<^

..,'•"-

..*-\«

.*'*

'*"-

«' f

»,/«•»<-,

/" ,

' .

Anni Albers

Anni Albers Nicholas Fox Weber

and Pandora Tabatabai Asbaghi

GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM

Published on the occasion of the exhibition

Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice,

Anni Albers,

organized by Nicholas Fox

March 24-May 24, 1999 Museum, Bottrop,

Weber

Josef Albers

and Pandora Tabatabai Asbaghi

June I2-August

Musee

29, 1999

des Arts Decoratifs, Paris,

September 20-December

The Jewish Museum, New February 27-June

ÂŠ

Front cover

Drapery material,

ca. 1944.

by Philip Johnson house,

New

Commissioned

1999

The Solomon

New

Foundation,

for Rockefeller guest

York. Plastic, copper

toil,

and

All

works by Anni Albers and Joset Albers

York, Gift of Anni Albers 1970. 75.10a.

by permission.

Back cover

ISBN 0-89207-218-0 (softcover)

Anni Albers

90.5

2000

Guggenheim

ÂŠ

1999

The

Josef and

Anni Albers

Foundation, Bethany, Connecticut. Used

Black Mountain College,

ISBN 0-8109-6923-8 (hardcover)

near Asheville, North Carolina, 1947,

Guggenheim Museum

photographed by Nancy Newhall.

1071 Fifth

Publications

Avenue

New York, NewYork

10128

Frontispiece

Josef Albers, Pazcuaro, date

unknown.

Hardcover edition distributed by

Collage of twenty contact prints,

Harry N. Abrams

mounted on cardboard, 25.4 x 20.3 cm (10 X 8 inches). The Josef and Anni Albers

100 Fifth Avenue

New

York,

New

York looii

Foundation, Bethany JAF:PH-553. Design: Nathan Garland

Production: Esther Editor: Jennifer

The

operations and programs of the Peggy

Guggenheim

Yun

Knox- White

Collection are supported by:

INTRAPRES^ COLLEZIONE GUGGENHEIM Aermec

iGuzzini Illuminazione Istituto Poligraficoe

Arclinea

Automotive Products

Zecca dello Stato

Leo Burnett

Italia

Banca Antoniana Popolare Veneta

Lubiam I9n

Barbero 1891

Luciano Marcato

Bisazza

Rex Built-in

DEW AG

Safilo

Gretag Imaging Group

Swatch

Gruppo 3M Italia Gruppo Imation Italia

Wella

Group

Zucchi-Ba.ssetti

Group

Management by Bondardo C'omunicazione

The

trustees of the

Solomon

Ciuggenhcim Foundation gratefully

acknowledge the Regione Veneto operation o( the Peggy

Offi cial carrie

1999

cm (39 x 35 Vs inches). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New cotton, 99

31,

York,

for the

Guggenheim

r/llitalia

annual subsidy that assures the effective

Collection.

Introduction

Contents

Nicholas Fox Weber

Thread

as Text:

The Woven Work of Anni Virginia Gardner Iroy

the Structure

of the

Weavings

Jea)i-Pattl Leclercq

Constructing Textiles

Anni Albers

118

Anni

Albers:

Devotion

to Material

Kelly Feeney

124

The Last Bauhausler Nicholas Fox Weber

152

Anni Albers 1899-1994 Pandora I'abatahai Asbaghi

Albcrs

The Solomon

Preface

Guggenheim Foundation

Thomas Krens

which

Director,

Foundation

Guggenheim

to present the

and

in Europe,

story

first

and her

art,

often overshadowed by that of her husband, Josef belong firmly

in the fabric R.

proud

shown

Her Httle-known

so in the centenary year of her birth.

The Solomon

retrospective of the art of Anni Albers to be

weavings.

of twentieth-century Modernism,

It is

remarkably pure but

by some of the dramatic events that took place

two world wars and her emigration

one of her

like a thread in

and humane

lively

touched

story,

Germany between

to a strange land, the

This exhibition has been made possible above

United

all

the

States.

by the Josef and

Anni Albers Foundation and by its indefatigable director, Nicholas Fox Weber, who, with Pandora Tabatabai Asbaghi, organized this exhibition. While thanking them personally for their leadership of the project, I also want to acknowledge how full a partnership with the Albers Foundation this exhibition has been.

loans from

its

expertise of

its

The

collections

excellent staff This

Guggenheim Foundation Foundation.

Albers Foundation has generously

Our

not the

time that the

first

has had the pleasure of working with the Albers

previous collaborations include two highly successful and

distinguished exhibitions of the

which originated

made

and has contributed the time and unmatchable

in 1988 at the

work of Josef Albers, a full retrospective, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in

New York, as well as a show devoted to his works in glass, which was shown at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice in 1994 and at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1995. Furthermore, we owe the presence of important paintings and photographs by Josef Albers Guggenheim's collections to the extraordinary generosity of the

in the

Albers Foundation.

My particular gratitude goes the Metropolitan

Museum

many important

of which have made

two

of Art and the

New

York

Museum

institutions,

Modern

professional staffs was vital to the success of this presentation.

who

other lenders to the exhibition, this catalogue,

After

Albers Paris,

Museum

wish to express

in Bottrop,

most sincere thanks.

Germany, the Musee des Arts Decoratifs

and the Jewish Museum to be

New York.

Kleeblatt and his colleague Susan

has been the Peggy

all

those

who

Norman

those institutions.

Guggenheim Collection

are

generously provide annual funds

gratefully noted elsewhere. For

Guggenheim

an honor for the

Marie-Claude Beaud, and

Chevlowe

Exhibitions presented at the Peggy inconceivable without

It is

working with these museums, and

particular with Ulrich Schumacher,

its activities,

To the many

are listed individually elsewhere in

closes in Venice, the exhibition will travel to the Josef

Guggenheim Foundation

for

Art, both

loans; the cooperation of their

many

years, Alitalia

Collection's official airline; the Regione

Veneto has provided an annual subsidy since

1981; the loyal

and enthusiastic

Advisory Board of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, presently led by Luigi Moscheri, has been a key part of the collection's success in the

eighteen years since

joined the

the Intrapress Collezione

European corporations, earmark cultural

Guggenheim Foundation; and

finally,

Guggenheim, numbering twenty distinguished their

annual support specifically to the

programs of the collection. Thank you to them

all.

How

appropriate that this major retrospective exhibition, the most complete

show

ever of Anni Albers's art,

hundredth anniversary of the

Guggenheim

the Peggy

which has been organized

artist's birth,

was

a perpetual explorer

and

left

sort

Nicholas Fox Weber

Ciuggenheim

Albers, Peggy

and adventurer, someone who broke down

behind the potential ease of one

barriers

devoted to

life

Foundation

art.

thanks to the extraordinary steward of Peggy's legacy, the engaged and

engaging Philip Rylands, Deputy Director of the Pegg\' Guggenheim GoUection, that

feel

this

show has been made

profound gratitude

of thought. At the

Pegg\'

him

possible

Guggenheim, we

and

tor his vision

that

opens

in Venice.

his perpetual clarity

are also gratefiil to

Renata Rossani,

who

Chiara Barbieri, Beate Earner, Glaudia Rech, and Sandra Divari,

have

undertaken a range of responsibilities with tremendous grace and energy.

The subsequent venues in Bottrop,

Germany,

years

fifty

and

to the

director, the splendid

Musee des

the fore.

nil

and where

because of

Marie-Glaude Beaud

—

woman one

its

and

brilliance have

and tenacious

success assured by

Development; Dominique

however particular

certain Anni,

would have loved

—

that this exhibition

Anne de Rougement,

Pallut, Exhibitions

has

art

been brought to

director, the exuberant, perceptive,

its

in her personal preferences,

splendid place, with

originalit)'

and

Arts Decoratifs in

time and again the place where the distinction of craft and

been rendered

Then on

art

of Anni's

a kunsthalle for the finest abstract

of the century, under the expert guidance of its patient Ulrich Schumacher.

Museum

Josef Albers

both the great showcase for the

husband and partner of

Paris,

The

are equally fitting.

fills

that

Director

Department Manager; and

Jean-Paul Leclercq, conservateur en chef du patrimoine charge des collec-

XlXe siecle. And finally the Jewish Museum in New home of Edward M. M. Warburg, the patron who, quietly

tions anterieures au

York, once the

and

background, paid the Alberses' steamship

in the

States in the

Bauhaus.

harrowing period

Thirt)' years later,

after the

and powerful Six

United

Gestapo padlocked the doors of the

was the farsighted institution

the patronage of Vera List, awarded for the elegiac

fare to the

Anni her most

Norman

Prayers.

that,

significant

thanks to

commission,

and

Kleeblatt, Susan

Elihu Rose Curator of Eine Arts, and Susan Chevlowe, Associate Curator of Fine Arts, are the open-minded and spirited individuals to

whom we

have

thank for 1109 Fifth Avenue again being Anni's sanctuary in America.

At each of those institutions the support with

Equal thanks go to those

Museum

of Art in

New

Department

Museum

the

York, without

have been possible. At the the

staff has tackled this project

and devotion that has made every stage of the work

flair

Museum

of Architecture

a pleasure.

Modern Art and Metropolitan

whom

this project

would not

of Modern Art, one must thank,

and Design, Matilda McQuaid, Associate

Curator; Luisa Lorch, Cataloguer; and Lynda Zycherman, Associate Conser\'ator; at the Metropolitan Assistant,

Department

Museum of Art,

Jane Adlin, Curatorial

of Twentieth Centur\- Decorative Arts;

the Antonio Ratti Textile Center of the Metropolitan

Conservator

Kajitani,

Gae design that

Aulenti

—

and

Museum, Nobuko

Charge, and F^lena Phipps, Conservator

so alert to Anni's vision; like Anni, so focused

"anonymous and

herself forward; so thorough

timeless

rather than

and quietly assured

—

any attempt

push

responsible not only for

many of its underlving precepts. Gae's office staff has been wonderful. In particular, we owe profuse thanks to the architect Massimiliano Caruso, who has managed the inordinately complex the appearance of this show, but for

details

textile

presentation with infinite patience and diligence, and to the

architect Francesca Eenaroli, for her continuous strength

Executive Director,

The Josefand Anni Albers

of existence for the supreme

pleasures, as well as the never-ending challenges, of a It is

Acknowledgments

should have been initiated by

Anni

C'ollcction. Like

honor oi the

and professionalism.

Pandora Tabatabai Asbaghi, co-curator of the breadth and depth of

its

contents,

Anni's persona along with her

art.

this exhibition, sculpted

and expanded

its

concept to include

Pandora has done so with

flair

and

insight,

with the "open eyes" so cherished by both Josef and Anni, and with rare energy and imagination. In compiling the chronology, Tirso Eduard Wiegel provided Pandora with much-appreciated administrative assistance.

Nathan Garland, the designer

of this book, has seen, with spectacular

conscientiousness and attentiveness, to the creation of a publication that

we hope, not only

functions, to

an exhibition catalogue but

He was

approach Anni Albers in adequate range.

Chase and Karin Krochmal. Katharine Weber,

as the first

volume

ably assisted by Gregg

as editor

of some of the

text,

has tackled difficult tasks with acuity and great finesse.

Great thanks also go to Anthony Calnek, Director of Publications the

Guggenheim,

humor

in overseeing the

complexity.

many

guidance and constant patience and good

for his superb

stages of assembling this publication in

all its

Managing Editor/Manager of

also gratefiil to Elizabeth Levy,

Foreign Editions; Jennifer Knox- White; Esther Yun, Assistant Production

Manager; and Liza Donatelli, Administrative and Editorial

Assistant.

Brenda Danilowitz, chief curator of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, has, more than anyone

made

else,

this

undertaking a

Her

reality.

attention to detail has been nothing short of staggering, her thoroughness

and

alertness,

even under circumstances of intense pressure, amazing.

It is

impossible to enumerate the tasks she accomplished with fortitude and care,

show would not have been possible without her. Others on the staff of the Albers Foundation have also played

quite simply, this

specifically in the imaginative effects.

essen-

Jackie Ivy, our curatorial associate, has helped in myriad ways,

tial roles.

and

Craig Taylor, curatorial

effective presentation

and

of Anni's personal

and Terry Tabaka, building superin-

assistant,

tendent, have been inordinately helpful in seeing to

vital details

pertaining to

the care of the objects. Phyllis Fitzgerald, our administrative assistant, has,

with her professionalism,

as well as the history

of her long friendship with

Anni, been an invaluable support. Camilla Lyons, an intern, did considerable research for the catalogue chronology.

Kelly Feeney, for

many

years a curator at the foundation,

responsible not only for a re-organization of our

documentation, but also for our success missing or

of time, she did insight. Sarah

this,

and much

Lowengard, the

in re-locating,

over a long period

with intense personal devotion and

else,

textile conservator,

consummate professionalism and with utmost wisdom and generosity.

themselves with advice

and re-acquiring

known and admired Anni

weavings; having

lost

was

Anni Albers holdings and

has cared for the objects skill

and provided

essential

Bobbie Dreier, the dearest of friends to both Anni and Josef Albers

from the moment of their

done more

for this

arrival in

America

November

show than she can imagine. She

of 1933, has

has unearthed

Anni's most thrilling hardware jewelry as well as other of the

handmade as always, I

objects, provided reminiscences

brought true joy to

all

both

telling

artist's

ways

splendid

and amusing, and,

of us engaged in Anni's work and

also grateful in countless

some

life.

fellow directors of the

Albers Foundation, John Eastman and Charles Kingsley, for their unflagging

support and generosity.

been an angel

who

And

As Anni declared is

always an "and."

century, of a a

any others, be

Hans Farman,

has, as always,

in her favorite

quotation from Kandinsky, there

behalf of one of the true pioneers of the twentieth

woman whose

wonderful friend,

Anni's brother,

has provided what no one else could have supplied.

integrity

repeat the

was on

a par

with her

words Anni Albers loved

talent,

to utter

and of

more than

ceremonial occasions or everyday moments: thank you.

Why

Anni Albers?

To begin

Introduction

with, she transformed textiles as an art form. Anni elevated the

woven threads and put the mediimi on equal footing with oil on canvas and watereolor on paper. And so Buckminster Fuller declared, "Anni Albers, more than any other weaver, has succeeded in exciting mass realization of the complex structure of fabrics. She has brought the artist's intuitive sculpturing faculties and the agelong weaver's arts into status of

Nicholas Fox Weber

historical successful marriage."'

She took up weaving a

full-Hedged

her,

artist, just like

Anni had wanted

reluctantly.

men who

the

but circumstances and certain unalterable

even though she

in the way. Yet

felt

that she

Paul Klee and

\'asil\'

of abstract art

when

Kandinsk\' had accomplished it

was

still

wall hangings of incomparable If weavers

realities of

her milieu got

had been forced into

medium what

she did her utmost to achieve with the

to be a painter,

attended the Bauhaus around

in paint. .A

pioneer

concept, in the 1910s, she

a radical

power and

and

Hair

textiles,

her heroes like

made

visual excitement.

of previous generations had replicated the flower patterns and

decorative motifs that were prescribed for the form, Anni used her yarns to create "visual resting places" (a term she

borrowed from one of her

Wilhelm Worringer), which are as calming and diverting as they infinitely rich and complex. Anni's textile compositions put in visual

heroes, are

form aspects of the natural world and of philosophical thought that reflected her endlessly probing, inventive

The

direct effects

fiir-reaching. Abstract wall

and echoes

mind.

of her daring search ha\e been

come

hangings have

to flourish as an art form.

become completely acceptable for thread to be its own voice, to have no obligation to represent anything other than itself. And in her own, extremely small body of work, she made individual masterpieces It

has

weavings that inspire meditation enrich the

lives

And what

brave

that profoundly

fix,

woman Anni

was! She

left

the comforts of her

the unprecedented at the Bauhaus. She married a

other side of the tracks in art.

quick

who wanted man from the

upbringing to join those daring souls

Itixurious bourgeois to

as well as a

of their viewers.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

because they shared a consuming faith

in part

Their joint pursuit of technical and aesthetic heights counted more

them than anything

to represent to

embody and moral and human standards. The making came both

else in life; the visual

them the highest

of art was the means and the goal that enabled

this

wonderful couple

not just to survive, but also to thrive, in spite of the sometimes desperate vicissitudes

of their existence,

duress were a

realit)'.

which Nazism,

illness,

and

financial

Their accomplishments triumphed.

Anni's marriage to Josef Albers that she holds for us. Neither of

is,

of course, part of the fascination

them bought

into any of the cliches that

on the subject. Sometimes Anni of downtrodden wife, but then she would disparage

others might have tried to promulgate

would assume

the role

the progress potentially offered by feminism.

whom,

there

single

answer

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

same

cause. Integrity, hard work, the serenity

best, the deliberate

its

distract

them from

their

ongoing and

Not only did Anni

who

influenced

and strength afh)rded bv

avoidance of those sides of the

of trendiness and corrupt values:

some

the issue of

except that both were believers in the

this

art

diligent search, the

mutual loathing

was what the Alberses cared

create individual objects that hold

of the finest abstract paintings of the century, but she

art

world that might

made

for.

against

functional

materials of incomparable subtlet\ and richness as well as practical

Anni Albers, Dessau,

ca. 1929,

photographed by Umbo.

Josef and

Anni

Albers, Oberstdort,

Germany, 1927-28.

Anni and Josef AJbers,

1942,

photographed by Ted Dreier.

effectiveness.

made an auditorium — —was sound-absorbing and

wall covering she

earned her a Bauhaus diploma

tor

the piece that

light-reHecting

while unimaginably modern and soothing to look

at.

The

air

and

light

that Howed through a space divider she designed were as essential to piece as its wooden strips, dowel, and thread. .Another wall covering

concealed

And

nail holes.

in all

extolled equally; the synthetic

approach was forever

this the

the

machine and handweaving were

was revered alongside the natural. Anni's

original, ba.sed

more on the

between language and

Text:

Letter (1958),

(1961),

Gardner

relationship

AJbers's weavings,

Troy's

"Thread

The Woven Work of Anni

Albers"

in this publication. 7.

.Sam Hunter, letter to

June

25, 1965,

Foundation

The

Joset

.-Xnni .Albers,

and .Anni

.-Mbers

archives.

the Israel

collections: Bauhaus-.'\rchiv, Berlin; .Art

memorandum

to the I'emple

Building Committee, Nov.

Temple Emanu-El, 3.

Emanu-El

12,

1956,

Dallas.

"Lotr\' Shrine: Dallas

Dedicates Synagogue,"

Congregation

Life, Feb. 25, 1957,

p. 6z. 4.

museum

and Weatherspoon

Institute ot Chicago;

Gallery, University of

North Carolina,

Greensboro. Another

in a private

collection in Pittsburgh.

The

fifth

has not

been located. 9.

Albers used the phrase 'thread-

1 hrcc ot the five studies are in

Sam

March

Hunter,

23, 1966,

letter to .Anni .Albers,

The

Anni Albers

Josef and

hieroglyphs" in a letter to the Jewish

Foundation archives. Hunter had expressed

Museum, March

enthusiasm

26, 1966,

Anni Albers Foundation 5.

Anni

The

Josef and

archives.

Albers, unpublished manuscript,

10.

Foundation archives.

March

Anni Albers, On Weaving (Middlctown,

p. 68.

The

titles

Press, 1965),

of many of AJbers's works

refer explicit^ to written language,

earlier letter,

such

dated Feb.

and .Anni

18,

.Albers

Foundation archives.

June 1962, The Josef and Anni Albers

Conn.: Wesleyan University

1966, also in the Jo,sef

Anni

Albers, letter to

26, 1966,

Sam

Hunter,

The Josef and Anni Albers

Foundation archives. 11.

Press release.

New

The

York, Jan. 1967,

Jewish

The

Museum,

Josef and Anni

Albers Foundation archives.

123

Island.

The

Nicholas Fox Weber

Last Bauhausler

Grasp the simple, embrace the primitive.

Diminish yourself,

— Lao

bridle your passions.

Tzii

When Anni Albers asked me if it would be possible to make fine-art prints at my family's commercial offset shop, she became a little girl eager to embark on

marvelous adventure.

septuagenarian

embarked

lit

for the

The

eyes of this generally

up with expectation. As when she had, Bauhaus half a century

earlier,

dour

age twenty-two,

she was entering her

favorite realm: that of uncharted territory.

This austere woman, dressed in her inevitable whites and pale beiges, her graying hair sensibly cut, her only

maybe some powder,

makeup

a hint of lipstick

and

sparkled like an eight-year-old in a party dress. Alice,

perhaps: an unbridled enthusiast about to enter the magical kingdom. It

would

had not occurred

minutes from

five

that

anything to either of the

offer

for insurance

their house,

family's printing

artistic AJberses.

Fox

company some forty-

Press,

mostly churned-out booklets and brochures

and manufacturing companies;

was known

for high-

quality color-process printing, not for the sort of work that bears an

artist's

on each sheet in the tradition of limited-edition lithographs, etchings, and screenprints. But Anni made her proposal with zeal. This great figure of Modernism who would, by the end of her life, be the last surviving signature

—

teacher of the Bauhaus

—

suggested

with the same eagerness and openness

with which she entered the vast domain of her

local Sears

Roebuck

(ten

minutes from her house) and embarked on a course of what, with her cadences, she enthusiastically called "tah-reasure hunting."

lilting Berlin

At Sears she would

extol the merits of plastic containers

blouses, declaring that that

"all this

machine processes were

among

and polyester

emphasis on handmade was nonsense, '

wonderful thing, and that synthetics were

the marvels of our century. I

told

Anni

a bit

about the technology of photo-offset.

gave a

simple description that touched on the process in the most fundamental

way

—

when,

trying as best a

few months

taking a Lord to the other

could to follow Anni's patient and generous lead earlier,

& Taylor box

she had led

to understand

weaving by

top and stretching lines of string from one end

and then inserting popsicle

sticks at right angles to the string,

with the sticks placed alternately above and below the taut

fiber, in

order to create a bare-bones loom that demonstrated warp and weft. She

had told

work

124

—

then that she was delighted that someone so interested in her

was hoping,

had

said, to write a

book about

— knew nothing

163.

Anni

Albcrs, Milan, July 1983.

125

—

about

work

her

technique, as she quite loathed

textile

to be thought of as art

swim

aspects of her personality, but her wish to

me, and since

thought Anni's

of pure and great abstract

art

against the tide intrigued

weavings" to have

"pictorial

—

and wanted

that craft stuff"

"all

did not yet recognize the perverse

first. I

the qualities

all

belong next to the paintings of her

Bauhaus confreres Paul Klee and Vasily Kandinsky

—

and since I, too, had most weaving with macrame and needlepoint and was amused and willing to follow her route.

the arrogance to link the like,

When we photo-offset, utilize the

began to discuss the possibility of her working with

Anni proved

medium

quick study. She decided that she would

to be a

make

a print

of two horizontal rectangular forms

stacked one on top of the other. Each of the rectangles

keeping with the

a triangulated pattern, in

would contain

recent geometric experi-

artist's

full of diversion and ins and outs, but deliberately symmetry or repetition. At the Bauhaus, Anni had been deeply moved by Wilhelm Worringer's pivotal book Abstraction and Empathy; she embraced Worringer's idea of abstraction providing the

mentations, a design lacking in internal

opportunity to create "visual resting places" removed from the often painful realities

and

of the natural world. She was interested in

in history

—

life itself

keep the viewer engaged, the new creation, to

locale or

moment

or to the maker's personal experience. This pure realm of art

could provide some of the harmony that

had

was timeless

art that

known

universal rather than art with specific links to a

eschew easy resolution;

like Josef,

like all

own

artist's

of Anni's compositions,

Anni imbued

certain tension, a perpetual in/out motion, an

and ground. The

sometimes lacked. To abstraction with a

ongoing play between image

persona was to fade

in deference to the

sacred realm of art and the comforts as well as the realities of the technical.

Anni had no wish

to reveal private

fluctuations of her

own mind and

the purely aesthetic

for

many

that

Lao

and

emotions or the sometimes troubling heart; she preferred, instead, to focus

Tzii's

It is

words were so beloved by Anni, who kept

philosophy in perpetual reach

just as she

had

no wonder

volume of his

at her bedside.

Photo-offset, she determined,

own

of printmaking,

practical issues

years reveled in the construction of textiles.

would enable her to reproduce her and simultaneously to obtain

deliberately irregular pencil strokes,

the crystalline edges

and

reversals allowed

by machine technology. The

photographic reproduction of her gray markings had never been possible

mediums with which

in the print

etching,

and screenprinting.

musical,

communication of the

and other ancient forms

—

meaning of its intonations

the precise

to the gray, a red pattern that

a bright plastic sheet

stripping department from an original sketch

opaquely on the top half of

and

lithography,

sort that fascinated her in hieroglyphics

idea of a voice being heard even

to be reversed

—

of writing. She liked nonspecific language, the

was indecipherable. In contrast hand-cut on a rubylith

she had previously worked

enabled her to suggest mysterious, and

on the lower

of two

layers

by Anni was

—

had been in the

to be printed

this

two-section print, while the pattern was

half.

What was

red above was gray below,

vice versa, another result of the photo-mechanical process.

The

solids

above were pencil strokes below; the pencil above unmodulated red below.

The

irregularity of her pencil strokes

against the crisp purity of that,

with a

flick

of the

—

this elusive fuzziness

machined forms appealed to her. So did the idea could make what was negative in one

wrist, she

rectangle positive in the other. She was grateful to the technology for having

opened new party.

126

Now

visual possibilities

—

if it,

not she, was the responsible

she could achieve the sort of contrast and unpredictability, the

^^ 164.

Fox

1973. Photo-offset,

X 34 cm (14?^ X 13 inches). The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, 38

'/(,

Bethany.

127

165.

Fox

II,

1973. Photo-offset,

X 34 cm (14 K X 13 /(, inches). The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, 38

Bethany.

128

niixtuiv o{

tlic

personal and

impersonal, the coincidence ot order and

ilic

spontaneity, and hence the playfulness and elements ot surprise intrinsic to

— while being — when A and work — she would work

her

part ot the

year or so later

munist

letting

you know

me,

ot the evidence remains.) The

would shorten her

(she

she was about ten aiul

first still

with tutors, was a Miss \

world

in the

work. (Unfortunately,

teacher ot Annelisc FIcischmann

she took josets as her

being etliicated

— Anni lo\ed

when

last),

small groiic) ot children

ni a

—

name for whom she autumn leaves."' Then,

the

painted "some good naturalistic watercolors ot

when

life

Com-

had started out with very

in her

first art

name when

iolet

about Anni's

detail

tone ot a rebel

had grown up with finger bowls

abstractionists, she

traditional renditions ot the natural

none

some

in the confessional

that she

many

house, that, like so

began to write

tell

modern world.

little

she was fourteen and had enrolled in the Kceiim, her parents hired

a private art teacher, loni Mayer,

who came once

week

house

to the

with a nude model tor Anni to draw. In retrospect, the idea ot the figure

drawing she had done at the

the

time

way

look

made

as a

her

young woman made

"feel

that the progressive

sense to Anni, but

and liberated "Tonuschka" gave her

beyond bourgeois

at the worici

little

very professional," and she was excited by "a first

Berlin." At age fitteen, in 1914,

Anni

made as her entry to a lyceum competition tor posters to give to World War orphans "a picture ot short-haireti little girls sitting behind each I

other in a row. Each wore a skirt about three inches short ot her knees and

was knitting, with a

a ball

of wool

in tront ot her."

premonition of her future involvement with

with that image she was combining her role ot bete noir? She got skirts

too brief

word

that the posters

Could Anni have had Did she realize that

threaci?

with that ot

star pupil

were unacceptably immodest, the

poster she considered distinctly inferior

won

first prize,

while hers was awarded only an honorable mention. Her frustration

—Anni always seemed —was with her over

over this

to take a certain pleasure in

wronged

still

With her next and breaking the

rules.

Martin Brandenburg,

art teacher, she

telt

she

made

having been

later.

continued both working figuratively

Now a tull-time art student with the Postimpressionist whom she liked and trom whose strict discipline

she benefited even

she

half a century

she questioned the specifics ot his training,

representational paintings about halt

The problems

lite-size.

began when, "ha\ing seen a beautiful Lucas Cranach Eve painted against a

black background"

—one must imagine

the sonorous, soft voice and

deliberate speaking manner, the subtle but distinct emphasis "beautiful,"

its first

warmly

syllable stretched

—she began,

of Brandenburg's recommended technique, to put black

Brandenburg

said that if she did not

could not return to his

classes.

reconciliation, the rebellious student dictates, but the

much

work she produced

this use

in tears.

vowing

atter that

in her paintings.

of black she

Her mother arranged

comply with the

time makes clear

teacher's

how

she ultimately delighted in that black.

When Anni red,

abandon

Anni was

on the word

in violation

first

gave

made in solid handwork exactlv. Mv outlines she would want the same

the sketch for the pattern to be

instructed the stripper to simulate her

erroneous assumption was that

in the

sort ot personal ettect that the gray pencil strokes had.

took the stripper

days to cut a rubylith that perfectly resembled her drawing

—only

have Anni respond by .saying that she hated the handmade appearance.

She meant her drawinti

onl\- as a tiiiide to the

design and desired exact.

129

and sharply pointed

crisp lines

The

do was cut one

Once

with the points

reverse of the top,

the preparatory stages were complete

all

thrilling intimacy, to a

devotion to

had ever thought possible

wanted

make

Fox

a trip to

this process

more honest and intense Anni said that she

—

She needed, she

Press.

—

felt,

watch the

actual printing in order to determine the intensity of the gray as

and

off the press

make

sure that the

opaque red trapped

rolled

exactly,

containing the pencil without any unwelcome white space around

all

regular visits to the Alberses

had exposed me, with than

triangles

piece.

had taken many months, during which art

just lightly touching.

from which he cut the

bottom unit was simply the

precisely; since the

had

triangles

stripper then developed a grid

it.

would pick her up one morning at the modest, shingled, raised ranch house where she and Josef lived on a pleasant suburban street in the town of Orange, fifteen minutes from the center of New Haven. Although she still drove short distances on her own, it was better for

agreed that

to take her

on the hour-long journey

was on the north side of Hartford, and return her In those days

Fox

at the

MG roadster, which

drove an

Press,

which

end of the

day.

thought would

be impossible for Anni to get into. She walked awkwardly, often using a

and her

cane,

what her

and

legs

feet

seemed

slightly

precise disability was, but she

had been an incorrect rumor

contracted rickets during World

Josef danced

War

referred to having

all

broken her hip problem. like

night, a

and

few years

would

i66. Josef Albers at 8

New

North Forest

Haven, Connecticut,

Circle,

ca. 1968.

—and

there

she wore large custom-made

accommodate

a structural

remained seated

problem.

Bauhaus

parties while

but she never identified the actual

sister,

Lotte,

them

of which their leg muscles

feet, as a result

children might be similarly afflicted it

—

from her brother, Hans Farman, that Anni,

could not fully develop. Anni's

that

her mother, suffered from a genetic syndrome that caused

have an extreme arch in both

know

did not yet

another point had mentioned that she had

earlier,

later learn

terribly thin calves

Black Mountain College that she had

shoes that were clearly designed to

Anni had once

malformed.

had

and Hans both

feared that their

— they were not— and Hans presumed

was one of the reasons that Anni and Josef had never had children

of their own. Indeed, Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, the hereditary progressive nerve disorder from

which Anni

suffered,

would probably have

caused any female children she had to have the same sort of clawed

feet,

nerve deterioration, and wasting of leg muscles as Anni had.' Other people,

however, said that the reason was that the Alberses' work was their children,

and

that their involvement with their art

for family matters.)

for the sake

left:

of Anni's comfort

no time or energy drove

mother's

Rover sedan, which so fascinated Josef that he came outside to the drive-

way

to study

it.

Josef paced back and forth analyzing the English

said, to their

Mercedes,

in that, unlike

of these models wasted trunk space.

American

car. It

was

similar,

designs, neither

The importance

of this relationship

of form and function was never minimized. The Alberses had already told

me on many

portable

Sony

Clean and

occasions that they preferred their Polaroid camera and

television to the paintings

effective design

of the Abstract Expressionists.

with a purpose ranked

far

higher than art

focused on the revelation of one's private self

Anni evinced the same pleasure embarking on our outing had over our collaboration from the eagerness of a

And

130

young man

was content beyontl

as she

the start. Clearly she liked the attention,

to cater to her

belief; after years

whims and soak up of studying

her views.

art history, in

both Anni and

josct

had ciKounicicd,

people ulio

as nc\(.T bftoic,

j;cn-

uincK' h\cd and breathed art as the essence of their h\es. lor the Alberses art

was the central

— not on

issue

of American education and

supreme

and

opposed

line as

was

Ihe

visual

to Duccio's,

most of Americas famous two

accessible of the

artists

she was as selective as in

— but Anni was

them, eager to cross the

all

the

from discussing

line

was entirely

friends. In this arena

of her other choices, but once one had made

sanctum, there was

to the inner

Giotto's

architecture, about

work and sense of self; Anni needed

his

a remarkable

— about

topics to establishing an intimate personal connection, josef

content with

institutions

world was

had established

German Rococo

about

most

in their marriage.

months Anni and

often had wonderful conversations

the tiaudulence oi

at large.

of them individually, and

for each

In the preceding

rapport. Josef

the peripher)' as

our culture

much

pleasure in being there, even

one had to remain somewhat on guard and on good behavior. Arrogant,

woman,

imperious, demanding, and snobby, this highly intelligent

grand duchess of Modern

art,

could be

she could be dismissive.

so, as

who

the few

and savored

recognized the

was Josef who

in 1971.

was then

among

of the position

latched onto the significance of

iiiitialK'

What

from the world of printing.

them laden with

at Yale.

rarit\'

as such.

in m\'

ordinary and bourgeois and businesslike for people to

this

and charming, genuinely

was, of course, Battering to be

escaped her opprobrium:

In fact,

my coming

as gracious

friend

both Annis and

Ihe occasion was our very

rare potential.

a twenty-three-year-old

Ruth Agoos

graduate student

first

who had

was

meeting,

in art history

— who with her husband. Herb,

work, and

Josef's

mind seemed too

like the Alberses

collected

been, to the cool and distant

extent to which the Alberses jointly permitted personal relationships to

develop, a friend of theirs for over a decade her in calling on them. At that point

reputation but

by her

knew

had seen I

about

little

his wife's

had, a year

anticipated meeting.

know what to expect from the great who had now made such a mark on American

earlier,

been the

Museum

Metropolitan

of Art

New

York

painter art

—

and

Josef

major retrospec-

living artist ever to have a

first

accompany work and

other than the pieces

was Josef whom

Josef's

did not quite

color theorist

tive at the

very

at the Agooses'.

— had asked me

was familiar with

— but

was properly

donned my one clean pair of corduroys, a herringbone jacket, and a tie would later discover how right I was in having a foreboding that such details counted in a major way nervous and intimidated

advance.

—

where

was going

—and did my utmost

when had to get underneath the By the time Ruth and pulled up I

Drive, 1

was past being Happed

—

keep the grease off

bang the

at the Alberses' at least

fuel

pump

—of

the house, with

its

had expected

—

But the interior

more than

head

—

his build

its

mind,

at least

some-

from I.evittown.

satellite

the half-fJight of stairs and, in an

met the

Alberses, their presence

the impression of

was almost

who was

and

and minimal and spare than anything one would

space completely. Josef was stocky, of

while Anni,

by Walter Gropius, or

chrome, not a

moment we went up

austere

ever find in I.evittown,

presence,

— but

in fact,

shingles the color of Band-Aids

to arrive at a pavilion

a rock.

house, at 808 Birchwood

strident concrete foundation completely devoid of planting. In

thing sleek and white and edged

pants

with

the car had finally started

could not help being astonished by the blatant ordinariness

the ugliness

tall

two

medium

like Picasso's,

for a

—

.separate beings

height,

was

—

filled

and had

mutual the

a large

but without the musculature

woman, was

thin as a

rail.

But whatever

131

were truly big people; they animated the world around

their builds, they

them. The nearly empty house, with

and complete absence of personal

few pieces of lean furniture

its

objects,

walls practically blank save

its

by Josef and work by two of his students (nothing

for four paintings

by Anni was

was

in sight),

minimal Modern

like a

stage set occupied

characters of Shakespearean dimensions.

The

redness of Josef's skin seemed accentuated by the snow-

whiteness of his smooth, straight

would have remarked on tell

hair, precisely the sort

of color effect he

Anni, although she would

in his teaching.

was so dark-skinned that she had been able

that she

of sun without any problem during their

Mexico

visits to

later

to take lots

in the era before

sunscreens were readily available while the fairer Josef had had to protect

made

himself assiduously,

—

a paler impression

like a figure in a

white movie slightly out of focus and infused with that she

had something about her

comic book fame, but

that

was

if this

less

light.

reminded

black-and-

regret to say

of Olive Oyl of Popeye

than flattering to her looks, the Olive

Oyl-like mix of awkwardness and amiability, the apparent receptiveness

and eager gaze

newcomer, won

as a

"What do you

do, boy^'' Josef asked

seconds after Ruth had introduced us and

over.

and control with which the rugged octogenarian had shaken study art history at Yale,

some lower

answered

sir," I

only

in a strident voice

had been struck by the strength

—

hand.

reduced, as

was,

echelon: a student before a senior professor, an apprentice

before a master, a private before a general.

"Do you

it,

boyV This was not someone who believed

pussyfooting.

had no idea what

I I

fellowship grant; in an instant. cost,

and

But

mean,

"Why

not,

"Well,

sir, I

really

find that I'm losing

how

semester

for that

for the past three

weeks

like,

think so

much about

When

all

tried to talk to the

New

I'orcst Circle,

he put

his

like, boy,''

Josef declared,

arm around me and patted my

as,

art

anymore.

with what

deduced was

complete surprise, bastards

Haven, Connecticut, 1968,

photographed by Henri Carrier-Bresson.

in art history don't I

you

like?"

answered, and

we bandied about

professors in the department.

the

names of a few of the

Anni now chimed

in.

They had

the usual

disdain that practicing artists hold for art historians. She referred to

one well-known professor used the American idiom

—

"And what does your puzzled

132

slightly.

—she grinned

being

"full

of hot

parents' professions

like a little kid as

— and

she

air."

father do?" Josef then asked.

had not expected

—

The

question

was past defining myself

was only months

if quizzical smile.

"Which of those

back.

Now

the facts they're looking

of the

can't feel that inexplicable thrill

noticed that Anni was looking at

"This North

been

about the colors and forms,

degree of fascination, and with what seemed an approving 167. Josef All)^.r^ a( X

I've

fixtures in nineteenth-century

was made, he said that that wasn't the subject of the course.

find

art.

been taking a course called 'Seurat and the

I've

what the painting looked

go to museums

passion for looking at

France to understand the details of Le Chahut.

when

boyV

basement studying gas-lighting

teacher about

packing

don't.

Iconography of Entertainment,' and in a library

have always been one to declare the truth at whatever

sir, I

this past

as part

thought he might have the power to send

he wouldn't mince words, neither would

"No,

with the university was, and

his relationship

was greatly dependent on the monthly stipends awarded

later that

realized

what extent

emphasized

Josef always

Albers had been

and plumbing;

Josef

who

occupation. I.orenz

his hither's

also did carpentry, electrical

work,

had the deepest admiration h)r the practical

skills,

hoiisepainter

on technical proficiency and knowledge

the emphasis

he had learned

of materials,

come from Adam and my who pointed to

as a child. "I

he would declare resolutely to scholars

whom

Johan Thorn-Prikker (with

That's all,"

father.

the glass artist

had apprenticed before attending

Josef

the Bauhaus) or to \'incent van Cjogh, or, less accurately, to the

and

Expressionists as a source for his early style

Besides,

mother was

Alberses might be interested that that the whiff of oil paint

one

as the

a painter; I

But

answered the question

in a

house with

a studio in

room was

detected in their living

had known throughout

thought perhaps that the

grew up

German

sub.secjuent developments.

the

it,

same

childhood.

"Hes

as asked.

a printer.

mean,

he owns a printing company."

"Good," Josef something. YouVe not

Anni had been looking of a

girl

that

owned

grounds

Her

—

his

for

was

From

many

round

father for the

What

all right.

own company, and a furniture

in effect

—

manufacturer

of business

felt isolated, this

graphic arts

met her

just first

moment

that

felt at

Hrst with the nervousness, then the relief, first

rime,

and who

did not yet realize was

we came from

similar back-

which her word of choice would have been "bourgeois."

combination

nature

art historian."

answer had afforded her a certain comfort, since her father had

father

in its

whose date has

has gotten through the

also

"Then you know something about

replied, smiling. just

link

a line

of work similar

and aesthetic concerns. For Anni, who by

between us had meaning.

that point forward, Josef talked to

— he esteemed graphic design

interesting printers,

to printing

and had designed

art

often about the

form, had worked with

several alphabets

— and gave

various materials pertaining to the subject.

Meanwhile, Anni,

who had had

far less to say in that first

conversation, had obviously begun to hatch a scheme.

been interested

some more something

And

While Josef had

printing connection theoretically, she recognized

tangible possibilities in the relationship. She might at the different sort of

in the

printing

company my

\oung man who had been brought

might have both

in that

and an admirer. She was,

a friend

make

familv owned.

afternoon, she

discovered in time,

deeply in need of both.

What that

most remember of the

Anni and Ruth

station

wagon,

anti

to procure lunch,

and that

world through the eyes of one of the

and

the ma.ss production a

new dimension, and

also

foods takes

encounter was

learned that

when you

Kentucky Fried Chicken

like "Josef

see the

proponents of the Bauhaus,

and

when

distinction

takes

and

ele-

don't like extra kah-rispy,"

more ordinary came to see that day that even the least appealing of fast on a new charm when enunciated in quiet Berlin tempo

"Ken-tucky fah-ried

from

initial

when someone of Anni's

has a magic that such preferences lack

souls.

of that

earliest

efficiency of

that

gance makes a pronouncement it

rest

went out, with Anni driving her Ghevrolet

a spare

— and

and lean

uttered by

served on immaculate white Rosenthal china

rolling cart, arranged there

by someone whose

eyes and imerring design sense govern every slight decision.

was two years

later that

was driving Anni

to her entrance to the printing plant the

Fox

Press.

She gave

same very individual magic, the

deliberateness and quirky charm, that she lent to most simple actions.

133

—

Proportioned

one

of Alberto Giacometti's striding figures

with the aid of her plain

stick,

Anni was

of her dark brunette hair and her

stately

she "purposefully avoided an arty look"

who was most

and walking

striking both for the dignity

own

manner. By her

—

definition,

a bent she shared with Josef

often seen in solid-colored, straight-collared shirts and

khaki or gray wool trousers; the tone

set

was of consider-

their clothing

able importance to both the Alberses. For her Fox Press outing, a simply cut, rather severe khaki skirt that

and

a silky white crepe blouse,

knowing her

well,

Anni wore

below the knee,

just

pure-white cable-stitch sweater. Not yet

assumed that the sweater was expensive, handmade,

— someone of Anni would wear nothing —but having become more acquainted with have come

and imported else

ended

that

Albers's stature

her

closely

to realize that

and from

work

For

a discount store.

practical products of ly instructed

was probably machine-made, synthetic, and washable I

now know

handmade and

weavers championing the

to look at their

that she always preferred the

mass production to most luxury goods

own

— and

belittling

regular-

machine

shirts.

Anni's plain, mostly inexpensive clothes acquired a rare elegance

her, in part

Alexander's

because of the

(When

have been Chanels.

asked

fit

for

whom

and hung; her its

suits

from

cheap merchandise) might

she considered to be the greatest

of the twentieth century, she was inclined to answer "Coco Chanel.")

artist

Along with the whites and a

way they

department store noted

shimmering brown

were of color

as well as

When we had

father

built

tans that day,

Anni had on

Press,

lamented

told

Anni

that

when my

he had considered buying Standing Lithographer

by David Smith, a seven-and-a-half-foot-tall for a chest.

jacket,

of texture.

walked into the pressroom,

Fox

brown suede

and heavy brown suede shoes; the balances

scarf,

this

figure with a steel type case

with the collector's usual woe over the

art

masterpiece almost bought, explaining that the ten thousand dollars

needed

buy

had ended up being required

had recently sold I

for

for a fire door.

one hundred and seventy thousand

considered too vulgar to mention but of which

Anni was

surprisingly

Without missing

unmoved by what

(The Smith

dollars, a detail

was keenly aware.)

considered a misfortune.

a beat, she simply pointed to a large Swiss two-color

and declared, "You see that machine? That, that more beautiful than anything David Smith ever touched." Anni positioned herself carefully on a wooden chair next to

press in front of us is

far

the thirty-two-inch single-color press where her print was to be run.

She exuded

a sense of

was mercifully

free

importance and rectitude,

as well as grace,

but

of the self-consciousness of a grande dame. She was,

quite simply, an honest worker trying to do her job as best she could.

There was nothing of an old lady about

her; she

was neither

a "character"

nor a "person of importance," and her age and gender assumed minor roles.

What was

remarkable was her quiet brilliance, and her humility

alongside her complete originality. As the pressman adjusted the press,

she spoke of the

wonder of the machine and of the

to the capabilities

artist's

need to respond

of the equipment.

Anni was curious about the

flexible plate that

was being locked

know more about how it was made. The pressman fetched the platemaker, who suggested that we go into the prep department to see how it was created. Observing the chemical processes onto

and

a roller

fit

and wanted

of the halftones, Anni marveled

As she exulted

the technology, this

accuracy of mechanization.

woman who

worked alongside Klee and Kandinsky

134

at the

fifty

at the

years earlier,

Bauhaus had

somehow made

this prinrint; pl.iiu in C'oiiiiccticut

and its

What

lite.

complicated

but rather

its

an outgrowth of B.uih.uis thinking

she c\okcd of that great and pioneering art school was not politics

the rivalries that sometimes sullied

t)r

and marriage

crisp thinking

While impressively himible

its

atmosphere,

and technology.

ot creativity

her demeanor, she had a degree

of politeness that suggested the true ranks of noblesse. Shaking hands

men

with the

at the plant,

Anni smiled graciousK- and

that she in

simply

their inability to use machines; they should

from

aside, suffered

them

told

admired what they did. "Craft people," Anni complained

look at what they were wearing to understand the value of mechanization. It

was yet another

reiteration of this favorite point.

Watching the used to

first

few prints

roll

off the press, which was usually

Anni was

off brochures by the thousands,

fire

been while the parts were clamped into place and the

was consistent with the passion

for preparation

when

often voiced to me. As a child of ten,

with her collars,

both

sister,

in their

and process

she went to the

When

parties in their Berlin apartment, she loved

fascinated by the return to the

norm

her parents gave costume

moved

in, just as

The end

quite as interesting. But what pleasure there had been

vast area of parks

her familvs formal

on the

had

symphony

she was

after the party; transformation,

the working of components, were her nectar.

were speciallv

This

that she

watching the usual furniture

being taken away and the party props being

when

she had

alwavs been that of the orchestra timing

up— more than the actual performance.

her childhood

—

black velvet dresses with white Irish lace

moment had

her favorite

riveted

rollers inked.

result

and

was never

on the occasion

became the (itunewald, the

flat

outskirts of Berlin. Large canvases of landscapes

and guests entering the

installed to create this picnic setting,

verdant paradise were met by a simulated boat, created on a bed frame

on wheels,

that ferried

them

few

feet

through the entr\\vay,

they

were crossing one of the lakes of the Grunewald. Most!)' Anni had negative

memories of her mother; she mainly her mother had arranged

showed some

Oskar Kokoschka a pupil

— he

she fondly

the study of

when

though

the adolescent Anni

and had accompanied her

Dresden

art

to the studio

hopes that he would take her on

in the

168.

remembered

stands, ticket booths, lost

the occasion

when

a railroad station

—

her mother appeared at a partv'

established by murals of sausage

and information desks

— and

acted like a child

before returning as a mother looking for a missing child.

Variations outside the norm, the shifts from one state to another, the sense of something happening: these brought considerable delight to

Anni and

Josef.

when

those occasions

were invariably fascinated by construction buildings, pointing out to Trial

and

error

—

Anni. By the time of our

handmade

me how

drove them to

sites

— never seemed

these grays imits had to be larger than she intended print so that the\- could be totalK' trapped, as

Anni saw She

Now,

was her

upper fault;

occasions and had applied too her

work

to frustrate

little

half

them

discovered that to be in the final

Anni wished them

as the first prints

that the gra\' of the

insisted that this

of new-

the print shop, she had had to redo the

pencil part of her print at least twice before

the solid design on top.

York, they

the process evolved.

the essence of process

visit to

New

and the scaffolding

began

to be,

to roll off the press,

was darker than

Annclisc and Ixniu

Berlin, ca. 1908.

did not) and her mother's complaints and pessimism. But

where the motif was

who was

all

initial talent,

recalled confrontation (even

the bottom.

she had done the two parts on separate pressure the second time. As with

weaving, certain issues were paramount: the knowledge

of materials, the decree of force or laxirv, the wish for deliberate balance

135

IL-isclim.iiiii.

and the adjustments required

as a setting for irregularity,

from the

initial

concept to an end result that was

The foreman

to proceed

completely

still

fresh.

joined the pressman in discussing the problem of

They determined would enable them to lighten the top gray. Anni the machine to correct her mistake. She explained

the two differing grays and Anni's wish to regulate them. that a press adjustment

was to

thrilled to use

oi us that the printing was as important to her artwork as was her

all

The

design concept.

initial

equipment, she subsequently told

role of the

me, had been equally important when she started twenty-two. "sissy stuff"

—

she used the term often

—

by which she had gained admission

jects

opposed

hoped

the other Bauhaus workshops she had

textile

work

medium and had

she had resisted the

Initially

— and

and metal

accompanied by

to enter.

As her entrance pro-

Bauhaus, she had made a

to the

a very naturalistic

a black-to-white color

age

to wall painting or

three-dimensional study out of the interiors of thermos bottles bits of glass

considered

drawing of

sequence.

— broken of wood

a piece

Not unnaturally

in light

of the thermos assemblage, once she was admitted she considered entering the stained-glass workshop,

where she admired the

made by

the glass-shard collages being

of the reasons that, in spite of having failed her

had become so eager

remain

at the

skill

and

originality

Josef, eleven years her elder initial

entrance exam, she

Bauhaus. (Josef coached her for the

second round of tests, which she passed.) But the Bauhaus masters

—and

one person was enough

in that field

metalwork would prove

to be too strenuous for her.

not

at all enthusiastic

wanted

in the possibilities

warp and

had

Kandinsky s, you had

that if

wanted

kind of railing to

tremendous help

so long as you, at the

—

weft,

"Even

structural aspect of knotting. Klee's or

and not something

She told me,

as sissy as

textiles,

and limitations of the loom, the

materials, the role of

and the if

to stay;

and

was

think

same time,

are

working with

she immersed herself textures of the available

charms

as well as the

a painting student of

a course in a

wanted

the limitations that

me,

visible

you were

go through

that

that carpentry, wall painting, or

But once she accepted the idea of

threads."

felt

about going into the weaving workshop, because

a real man's job

and one

workshop. So

to stay. This

come with

weaving was

That was

a craft.

probably can be to anybody,

concerned with breaking through

it."

II.

knew a man once who was the best compositor in the world, and who was who devoted themselves to inventing artistic types; he derived joy, not so much from the very genuine respect i)i which he was held /

sought out by all those

persons whose respect was not lightly bestowed as from the actual delight in the exercise

of his

craft,

a delight not wholly unlike that which good dancers derive

from dancing. I have known mathematical

way

type,

difficult. I

also compositors

who were

or script, or cuneiform, or anything else that was out

did not discover whether

these men's private lives

but in their working hours their constructive instincts

— Bertrand A month print

experts in setting

of the

were happy,

ivere frilly gratified.

Russell'

or so before this trip to Fox Press,

one afternoon when we

print over a Velox

—

pattern, but did not

Anni had devised

second

accidentally juxtaposed a negative of the

shiny proof

want thin

— of

lines of

it.

first

She was happy with the resultant

blank paper to show between the

shapes and the overlap, a result that was possible to achieve only through printing techniques; there could not have been a study drawing.

shop foreman, who had

136

closely h)llowed the

development process of both

came over

prints, if

second image was coming oH the press and asked

as this

wasn't even better than

tlie

concept behind the

first

Anni smiled

print.

and agreed. As with the

image, Anni

first

margins so that the paper

The

frames.

size

would

lormat and

liad de\ ised tlie o\erall

fit

into prefabricated metal-strip

work

Alberses were both great believers in adjusting their

according to the

products. Standardization appealed.

sizes oi available

Anni had given up her loom

moving

1968 because she was

where no room was big enough

for

house

to a

or at least this was the reason

it;

she gave. (This obkiscation through sounding deceptively martcr-of-tact

struck

being on a par with her

passport as "housewife." Clearly

listing of her profession

on her

she had wanted to keep on weaving,

she could have moveti to a house with enough space for her loom.)

When

an earnest art historian once asked josef wh\' he had enlarged the

size of his

Honitiga

to the SqiKtrc

and had begun

a grou|i of fortx-eiglu-

by-forty-eight-inch panels, and, to Josef's irritation, suggested that

something

do with

a response to the scale of the

had

American landscape

and the oversize canvases used by the Abstract Expressionists, Josef replied that

was because he had gotten a larger station wagon.

Meanwhile, the press had been the second image. As

we admired

when he switched from Rives

BFK

was time

Hew

specified, the print

coverage lush and gorgeous. Just

made

and luxuriant

off the press,

one hundred and

like that,

to print the black

the proof paper to the thick

Anni had

that

set

the adjustments the pressman

its

ink

fifty sheets.

for lunch.

the car ride to a local restaurant,

woman,

this elderly

for

all

was again struck by how

had something

of the visibility of her struggles,

about her of an eager child. Her face undisguisedly revealed the

battles

of her youth; the rebellion against her mother and anger toward her rejected the trappings of upper-class existence for the rigors of

the Hight from

Nazism and, more arduous

years later to get family

and friends

powerful and

caused no

little

all

America when refugee ships were

in the

self-satisfieci

man, whose draw

marriage

for other

women

grief for his very self-conscious wife.

Anni often person

too

Modernism;

the painful efforts a few

yet,

being turned away from our shores; the ups and downs of to a

as she

room.

wherever she was she

said that "

She

first

"the youngest

felt like

me when

mentioneci this to

describing

being taken, as a child, to the Secession show in Berlin. Her father regularly

museums on Sundays;

took her to

more adventurous than

usual.

this

She

time he had opted for something

crowds shaking their heads disapprovingly "simply thought,

'Why

not?

shocked

said that as she observed the

Telling

at the

avant-garde images, she

when

this

she was seventy-six,

she remarked that having been the only child at that Secession exhibition, she had

felt like

that she

still

most of

like the

awkward

the youngest person in

always asked,

most situations ever

since,

and

"'Why not?"

Indeed, in attitucle and interest she was younger, and fresher, than

contemporaries, even

was

fifty

pleased with herself, but rather the one

who

She was

years her junior.

sort of adolescent girl, not the ver\- prett\-

has to

make

one patently

the extra effort,

the one intensely asking questions and looking at the world before her.

have, since that tirne, heard

who knew ever lived.'

saw her

Anni

her for years at Black I

called

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D;by

Mountain

woman woman who

a perfectly guileless

"the homeliest

have also heard scores of witnes.ses

who

public describe her as incredibK- beautiful.

visited her 1

ler face

house or

was sharply

137

— — and sometimes

delineated, intense,

a bit crazed

but her looks were quite unlike anyone

Anni

was uncertain

problem with being Jewish because face because to her

like Virginia

for her as to

was associated

were very caught

whether she had a in her

any event,

much

would

body, but also with her religious heritage and, on

Nothing was easy

femininity.

was so

like a true

mind with

the

represented her Jewishness, which she eschewed for

— but

acknowledge

rather not

she was supremely uncomfortable not just with her

this,

Woolf's

she did not like in herself, or whether she disliked her

facial characteristics

other reasons

which

herself hated her features,

up with her Jewishness.

—

else's.

some

own

face

levels,

and

with her

complex person, who paradoxically

for this

ingenue.

In the car that day,

on the way

to the restaurant, she

was happier

than usual and eagerly took the conversation from topic to topic. She and Josef led a

life

of remarkable solitude. Their house was truly a machine

for working, with living as a secondary concern; they virtually never spent their evenings

with other people, and any encounters they had were almost

always for the purpose of making or showing

art.

Josef was not

inclined under any circumstances to discuss politics or world

much

affairs.

Anni,

on the other hand, was keenly aware of the news, which came to her through a large radio and a TV that sat on rolling tables near her bed, and if her husband, she told me, felt as if the news was "all the same, always repeating her.

not

itself,

as interesting as art," the events

of the world fascinated

Like Josef, she too had art as a credo; she would point out that while

science constantly changes

unique

and new

discoveries outdate old ideas, art offers

the example of a two-thousand-year-old Korean

stability, citing

teapot with timeless appeal that affects the beholder in as the art

of our

way

the

own

times. Nevertheless, the

lunch and

recent shooting

on an

at the restaurant,

Israeli airplane;

most

much

news mattered

the

same way

to her.

what was on her mind was a often, though, in that time

period she was preoccupied with Watergate and desperate to discuss

Maureen Dean or Martha Mitchell or Nixon himself In some ways, she seemed to be a broader intellectual, and a fuller person, than Josef With the Israeli shooting as her topic, Anni's ambivalence about being Jewish was again apparent. Although she would subsequently change it,

in her will at that

been

there, she felt

time she had

Museum

textiles to the Israel

left

her collection of Pre-Columbian

in Jerusalem;

even though she had never

affinity for that country. Yet she

would often

describe herself as Jewish only "in the Hitler sense": her mother's family,

named

UUstein, had gone through a mass family conversion to Christi-

anity at the

end of the nineteenth century, and her

Fleischmann, had seen to her being confirmed

hood

—

in Berlin's great

She was proud that

as a

father, Siegfried

Lutheran

in her child-

and fashionable Karl Wilhelm Gedachtniskirche.

this latter fact

had enabled her and Josef

to acquire the

grave plots they wanted in Orange, in the section of the cemetery where

Catholics like Josef were generally not allowed to be buried. (The choice

of burial

site

was extremely important

them, in part because they want-

ed to be right next to the narrow driveway that wandered through the

cemetery so 169. Josef

Town

and Anni

Albers's graves,

Orange

that,

go to the post

once the

office

first

of them had died, the remaining one could

and then drive into the graveyard, stop the

car, roll

Cemetery, Orange, Connecticut.

down

company of the other Indeed, Anni often made such

the window, and read the mail in the

without having to get out of the

car.

although, contrary to plan, she was driven there by

never seemed to understand that,

meant entering from

118

visits,

wife or me, and

she was to be right next to Josef this

the opposite direction than they had originally

planned, since

But

car.)

Anni

now

she was in the passenger's seat, on the other side ot the

of anti-Semitism,

in the face

Anni had when,

told

month

how oHended

she was

named

known

said that they should have

her.

doubt that she saw any irony

me numerous

Irom hrankturt

nastily ot "Jewish girls

Anni I

about

earlier

Bauhaus, Mies van der Rohe and anottier architect,

at the

Ludwig Hildesheimer, had spoken

as reflected in the violence in Israel,

considered herself to be Jewish.

better than to

even though she had explained

in this,

times that she didn't really consider herscll to be Jewish.

own background was

But her attitude toward her

unique

when

everything else about her. Instead ol reacting with anger or fear

her

Jewish heritage had forced them out ol Germany, she told

she had

"uncomfortable and responsible lor Jo.sels having to leave

his

homeland

alter lorry-five years."

Josef's neck.

When

;

that in Iront of

.say

She considered

herself "almost a weight

had docked

their boat

New

lelt

around

York, hours late

because of a storm, and the photographers, there to cover the arrival of first-class

passengers but then told that a famous artist was also

had begun

who had

of the Modernist

to take pictures

mood

Black Mountain, a jaunty newspaperman had lightened her

else: "

erably with a remark that might have infuriated .someone Let's get the wife too!"

delight

he had exclaimed. Anni quoted

on numerous occasions. She

been happy to surrounding

.see

this to

relished his informality,

someone break ranks from

the

on board,

arrived to teach at

consid-

Fhe wife.

with

and she had

crowd of reporters

The attention had somehow helped assuage her

Josef.

There was never an

iota

of resentment

In spite of her not having

guilt.

her retelling of the incident.

been offended when others might have

been, Anni often considered herself the victim of an insult or rudeness;

many times her memories of people had made to her. Mies, Anni would was central

revolved around a nast)' remark they

another of our conversations,

recall in

She and Josef were newly-

to yet another social slight for her.

weds and had

just

moved into one of the masters' houses at the Dessau new bride that Mies and his mistress, Lilly Reich,

Bauhaus. Josef told his

would be coming for dinner. Anni was determined to do her best in every way possible. Her mother had given her a butter curler, and she made a neat

mound

arrival.

of butter balls that she put

Mies and Reich had only

her and burst out, "Butter the Bauhaus you'd have a

Here

balls!

good

on the

walked

just

wound

table prior to their guests'

when Reich looked

the Bauhaus!

solid ^/of^

Anni's face betrayed the

should think

consequence

—

she had incurred at the remark;

of the same. Once,

a year or so following

after Josef's death),

exhibition of Josef's al,

no-makeup

larly

wife purchased a

work

prettiness

new

marriage

total lack

and very becoming

a source

of vanity,

dress.

was stretching out

with more than the usual "Is that a

new

much

few months

dress for the

of envy

felt

for

Anni

opening of an

—whose — was not

high

the

lilt

last

to Anni's

spirits,

house

and, in spite

rather pleased about the simply cut

She entered Anni's bedroom at

natur-

particu-

went together

up belore the event. Katharine was

of an almost

tically,

the Yale Art Gallery. Katharine

was

confident about clothing matters.

to pick her

— perhaps

beleaguered victim could dish out

this

of butter."

she said that she had barely been able to get through dinner. Yet as a natural

before

minute

to rest

— Anni,

characteris-

up before the event

to her walk.

dress?"

Anni asked

as she

gazed seriously.

"Yes," Katharine answered.

"Can you by

a sadistic smile.

still

return

What

it?"

This second question was accompanied

the incident realK- ie\ealed about

Anni

139

170. Josef in

New

and Anni Albcrs arriving

York on board the SS Europa,

November

24, 1933.

her jealousy, her extreme mixture of kindness and nastiness, or her cruelty,

whether deliberate or inadvertent

—

hard to gauge, but

was

t\'pical.

Yet in spite of this exchange, and other comparable slights,

Katharine had considerable fondness and respect for Anni

Once, when going

the unique workings of her mind.

up some

to pick

requested "a banana"

or the other as

was the

— pronounced bah-«/?/>nah — No

"an avocado."

ly stretched

was making

groceries for Anni, she

one

Katharine

else,

—and

relished

market

to the local

list

when Anni

with the as similar-

or,

could want one

felt,

they were comparable. But for Anni texture, not

taste,

issue.

Katharine also took particular delight in Anni's obsession with lyi.

For Kathy's Nov.

1982. Yellow

14.6

15.9

12, igSi,

/<;

warehouse where

to the

inches).

She was fascinated by the way

plastic.

marker on wove paper,

enormous

used to cover sofas

clear bags

when

that,

went

the three of us

was stored, Anni would covet the

Josef's art

Collection of Katharine Weber.

—

just as she relished the sleeves

given by banks for savings-account passbooks. Katharine has often

map of some

Like a medieval

Anni's drawing for

distant island,

twenty-seventh

birthday in 1982 signifies the uncharted

and unchartable nature of her own emo-

who made

remarked that Anni was the only person she has known covers for her washer

and

dryer.

The

herself out of shower-curtain material favorite of

slip-

great textile artist stitched these

—which, Katharine

felt,

was Anni's

substances.

all

me, the drawing has

tional geography. For

always represented something unspoken

between

that existed

was one of mutual

us.

Our

relationship

affection,

and occasional

sparring.

The same week

adversarial

made this we were

she

drawing, Anni learned that expecting our second child perhaps, but also another

— another

member

an edge. left

The

three squared dots

are elements that

might

over the open top of the form and

about

inside. Is

body?

Is it

political

views were based on the impressions people made, on their faces

Indian wife.

maze?

Is it

pleasant,

The

more than on any deeper knowledge

So she and Josef liked Nelson Rockefeller,

and had

little

novelist Robert

something about of

move

is it

suspended, a weighted, chunky form that

"who had

use for Gerald Ford,

Penn Warren was of no

his face. It

was

as if

interest to

people were

who seemed

a face like a knee."

them

— because of

constructed works

the qualities of balance or aggressiveness, of correctness or ugliness,

art:

could be apprised even with a cursory view.

Anni

a living

leaping across the page or

learn over the years that

character,

also has

on the

travel

said that she

many of her

his

of their platforms. Looks were paramount, in people outside the realm of

and dimensional, because

flat

— and

admired

politics as well.

her thick line seems to float yet

would

also sang the praise

candidate

a potential presidential

rival,

organic shape in the drawing

looks both

— then

and the appearance of their

her not quite family.

The

At lunch on the day of our Fox Press outing, Anni of Fred Harris

respect, cautious

for,

seem

also didn't

to have

would often

the effects of her words. So she

theory that what seems bad at

first

any awareness

can

in the

of,

or at least concern

when

say,

justifying her

long run be beneficial, "After

her shaky pen has carved in the paper?

Did she

anticipate that our second

all,

this Hitler business

not grasp, even

Does the drawing depict her conception

might offend

of the three

little

Webers nearly devoured

by the grasping, looming form of her distorted body?

Or were we

her safe harbor?

Katharine Weber

had the

statement the view that

Red China seemed

the ideal country, for

society lacked. She

complained that we had too much freedom

like a tiny

archipelago along her coast, sheltered in

turned out rather well for Josef and me." She did

when my wife pointed it out to her, that this some people. Now, at lunch, Anni put forward

baby would take us farther away from her?

moment But

—

just as there

discipline

had been too much freedom

her effect on her audience didn't count,

now. He'd be furious

When Anni lunch,

offered

improve our change.

but

and

up the

father

idea that

society, that

and

if I

seemed

he heard

at that

said,

say that."

drove back to Fox Press after

did not think any government could

thought that religion could help;

of the Bauhaus come

alive:

Hard work,

clarity,

and

brilliant art

this diaart!"

through buildings,

through teacups, through the design of newspapers, there could yes to the soul.

said no,

"Through

logue, apparently deep in thought. Suddenly she burst out, faith

"I'm glad

our whole way of thinking was what needed to

father asked if

was the

husband

that her

thought that education might. Anni was quiet throughout

own

Black Mountain.

was her conscience or superego: smiling apologetically, she Josef can't hear

our

result a

could together change

the world.

The magnificence of this

140

woman became

clear to

me. She had

faith

—

system both tor herself and for

a belief

she devoted her

life.

was by doing everything she could ways,

her as a husband

irritate

their relationship

credo. But

side

too apparent

all

and code she

that, entirely in her

— and constantly looking. "to

open

sometimes obstreperous,

yang of

wife.

own

this better

Anni

They

raison d'etre.

a true

make

his

com-

Annis

his laundry, served

right, she

make open

was daring and

giv-

after arriving at

the eves"

— which soon

his higliK- influential

than his uncompromising,

— — had

ancJ Josef together

two sometimes contrasting

their

which

organization of an exhibition

svnon\'mous with

eves," the v\'ords

and

had declared, shortly

Josef

— and no one exempliHed

teaching

Josef; he might, in

— but he was

revered,

in the

Black Mountain, that his goal was "to

became

and aid

to support

of the ocean or the doing of

be\ond

—

the disappointments and frustrations of

run more smoothly, whether

life

on the other ing

—

were sometimes

practitioner of the philosophy

plex

societ\- at large

Part of the \va\- that she ser\ed this liigher [nirpose

personalities

for

the vin and

all

common

believed that art could change the world as nothing else

could. Morality, balance, decency, a responsiveness to the richness of

human

the universe and of

of this could be revealed and abetted

life: all

through paint, thread, and ink.

Anni was immensely

When,

few weeks

she recalled that

made "through

later,

before bringing

all this,

but she was also wry.

the topic of social change again,

father had offered that

improvement might be

She repeated

sex."

was one of her

learn,

serious in

we took up

this

with

glimmer. Sex,

She had

favorite topics.

would

know someone

later

very well

up, but, sometimes playful, sometimes mischievous,

she had lots of questions she wanted answered, lots of words she had

heard on television and neecJed to have explained. Once, Black Mountain asked her wJio

been or

who

when

student

she would most like to have

in history

her favorite imaginary persona was, Anni, with her rather

and mmlike persona, did not miss

sticklike figure

a beat in her

answer:

"Mae West." Back

Fox Press

after lunch,

found contentment

Anni again bore the look of glee

—with which

do with the making

of art.

Once

commenced any

she

— bearing an uncanny resemblance

Vicomtesse de Noailles,

— of

pro-

having to

she had gone through the diplomatic

niceties with the pressmen, she seated herself again

chair

activity

on the simple wooden

to Balthus's portrait

of the

which that great patron of the avant-garde was

painted not in one of her elaborate residences but rather, dressed austerely,

simple side chair

rugged

in the artist's

atelier,

her face serious, her

thoughts turned inward. Anni became both resolute and concentrated, a

missionary on a campaign, a research scientist peering into a microscope

in the

hope

that

what would soon be

visible

might provide an answer

an unsolved mystery of existence. She approved the tone and color mix

of the red for her

first

print,

wash-up, Anni compared weaving, securit)',

was

all

and off

rolled.

this necessity to the

Then, watching the press

counting of threads

part of the process of art, she remarked.

the sense of hope, the sublime feeling of possibility afhirded by

that process

were her

Now

elixir.

was time

run the brown of her second print. Josef had

selected the precise ink a few days earlier from the In that simple act of collaboration,

one could

asked questions about their relationship as fellow

living

and working together

in the

PMS

see the

ink swatch book.

answer to the often-

artists, as a

wife achieving different levels of success in similar

woman

The emotional

fields, as a

husband and

man and

twentieth ceritiu\. I'he Alberses

141

were

rwo-person religious

like a

Their goal was simple: to make the

sect.

best possible art.

They

to this task. Like

two builders working

same

cared above

edifice, occasionally

all

about honesty

on the

work, they mainly

of Josef leaving the house

Or was

and he did not want

known of rwo

at 8

North Forest

in her

this

wife's success, as the observer

great artists.

maintain that

claim

that

Anni

suffered as the lesser-

who

the other hand, there are weavers

Mrs. Josef Albers she had entree where they did

from the

visits to

her house of art-

kitchen

Circle,

Connecticut, 1958.

for the

following the publication of his Interaction of

not, that she benefited considerably

Anni Albcrs

the director of

to steal the stage but rather to let his wife

The common

enjoy the attention?

172.

when

because he was then at the peak of his fame, particu-

community

larly in the Yale

bitterly

kept their

not returning until after the deal was complete. But was

out of jealousy, his not being able to bear his

Color,

just

buy one of Anni's weavings

the Yale Art Gallery arrived there to

inferred?

erection of the

hears stories that suggest that there was competitiveness in

their relationship, like that

museum and

on the

not on each other.

job,

One

side

they might take advice from one another, hear

a helpful suggestion; otherwise, in their

eyes

side

approach

in their

New

Haven,

name that was known by every critic and work amount to less because she functioned,

world luminaries, and from

museum

Did her

director.

a last

to use her favorite term, as "that

dragon

her

at the door," protecting

husband from the sometimes unwelcome advances of journalists,

and students? Did she

lose

gallerists,

out because of the time she spent doing his

laundry or preparing his meals? Indeed, Josef was so inept in this latter process that once,

Anni was heading

to the hospital for a scheduled operation that

require her absence of three days, she

instructed

him

precisely

on how

(twice)

left

out a row of cans of food,

and showed

to use the electric can opener,

what was involved

when

would

turning the stove on and off But,

she often pointed out, the activity of thinking about food and cooking

only entered her

once she was

life

the sort of household

where only

fifty;

1950,

when

she and Josef arrived in

like a

new

artistic

refer to the color

And

Mountain

New

childhood she had lived

staff entered the kitchen; at the

there had been a cafeteria, at Black

about making dinner.

in her

Bauhaus

dining room. Only in

Haven, did Anni have to think

rather than resenting the task, she approached

medium.

Josef, after

arrangements of

all,

used the word "recipe" to

Anni too saw cooking

his Homages:,

an act of taking components and combining them

effectively,

even

was

if it

an area where she favored minimal expenditure of time and energy and

aimed merely

for adequate, not exciting, results.

(When

was

first

setting

up modest bachelor digs and clearly had little idea about how to cook, heaven and she advised me on her favorite recipe, for ''himmel und erde'

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

consisted of taking a jar

of applesauce and mixing

earth.

parts,

with instant mashed potatoes.)

But whatever the

When

things for Josef

details,

she once told

band asked

manage

to shake off the

met the

once and

for

all.

The

him

shirts

of an occasion

for her help

tion with Josef,

in equal

that she liked

doing

he died, one of her immediate laments was that

she would miss the need to buy level,

Anni often claimed

it,

when he wanted

woman on

and

when

his

socks.

quite a different

she was pleased that her hus-

end

a love affair

own; Anni,

and could not

complete collabora-

forlorn mistress in order to stop the relationship

terms of their marriage are hardly to everyone's

taste,

but apparently they suited the participants. Anni's

memory of their early courtship reveals a singular lack may explain a lot of her subsequent attitudes. At

of confidence, which

142

her

Bauhaus Christmas party

first

brilHant green silk accented

many

from

gifts to distribute

shy newcomer"

tion, "a

—

Anni was

knew

home

in Berlin tor

similarly surprised

when

photograph

told

few

good

was an image

hir her.

when

knew

from her

feet

gr.icctu! l\g\ ptiaii

hgure existed,

her,

on the

pillow. In hict, every to her bed.

173.

Gionu, ihght

into

l.g)'l>t<

1304-06.

Scrovegni Chapel, Padua.

that shortly after receiving the Egyptian figure,

some money by

made out of little now seeing often,

selling necklaces that she

whom

she was

have a conventional suit made.

tailor to

and

ot the

shows the bronze next

beads, and this enabled her to take Josef, "to a

one

her rwentv-

package arrived

a lithe

her bedside

ot an\'whcre she ever lived

Anni she earned

had

still

wooden bookshell onK'

plain white

was unequivocal.

Josef; the thrill

Joset had secured this

Anni

well, since

descrip-

Suddenly

she was

when

Pergamon Museum. Only rwo copies

and the near-penniless

get one.

her a print of Giotto's Flight into

containing a twelve-inch-high bronze copy of figure at the

a dress of

— by her own

would not

that she

He handed

1 he following June, third birthday,

— she wore

huge basket; Anni

his

The card was addressed to her from

Egypt.

in 1922

pink velvet ribbon. Santa Claus had

a little

— knew

Santa called out her name.

Weimar

khaki corduroy jacket with a hint of white

His usual garb was a

silk scarf

showing beneath

it;

while Anni considered this very becoming, she was also concerned about unconventionality. She reacted similarly to the

its

forward in bangs:

"I still fall for

any man with

way he wore

his hair

this haircut today,"

she allowed with a smile, but she added that he had to change this haircut

Weimar

for the reason that "the waiters in

restaurants were inattentive

because of his bohemian looks." In a similar vein, Anni the

new

she wanted them to

easy about the

feel

These attitudes

art school."

notions about clothing in

message of

class

— both

its

he should have

felt

world of her parents;

suit as a necessary prelude to a visit to the

young man from

"the adventurous

and the

the aesthetic preferences

sociological context, or visual

—were with Anni throughout

her

st\'le

and the

life.

Indeed, the entire Fleischmann family was charmed by Josef in his suit. side."

Annis

brother, ten years

Her younger

for bringing

home

sister

younger than

wrote to Anni

"the beautiful

she, "could not leave Josef's

the Bauhaus just to thank her

Memling." Her mother would

Josef that if he ever had an\- real trouble with Anni, the house

open

him without

her.

When

Josef in 1925, was the

first

later tell

was always

student to be

asked by Gropius to become a master at the Bauhaus, meaning to Anni (so surprisingly traditional in certain

ways) that she could

parents about their getting married, her parents gave their the wealthy Jewish Berliners readily

Catholic, even far less

if Josef's

father

support;

in Bottrop,

church a short walk from the Fleischmanns' apartment as guests

ask her

full

embraced the impoverished Westfalian

and stepmother, back

comfortable with the match. Anni and Josef were

immediate family present

now

— and then

wed

were

in a Catholic

—with only her

repaired to the elegant

Hotel Adlon for a celebration lunch. Larger parties and events, Anni and Josef

felt,

were not for them. They belonged,

things like that";

the

of the Alberses' time

rather, "to those

and

had

energ)'

who do

to be focused

making of art.

In 1953 in

all

New

and

1954,

when

Josef was teaching in

Haven, they wrote

spondence that

to each other

all

Ulm

while Anni remained

the time

— thus

one of the few written testimonials

leaving correI'^4

and

I~5.

RcprodiKtion

figurine given to

communication with one another.

An emphasis on

She wrote

Anni by

t;\p(iaii

Joset

on her

tweniy-third birthday (above), and the

clothing, as well as

Josef, are recurring themes.

of their particular

him

Annis

delight in helping

figurine

shortK- after his departure, in

on Anni

bedside shelf at

808 Birchwood Drive, Orange, Connecticut. 1994 (below).

143

a letter full

of chat about the details of

family (they were apparently

time

knew them) and

done or off. It

wrong,

said

something quality, as

—dinners out with

friends

and

Anni's usual mix of pleasure and fear of things

painting your ceiling now,

"I started

goes slow. But

life

sociable during this period than at the

your

all

shirts

new

have their

all

gets done."' Pleasure, rather than resentment,

the paper

collars. is

at least

a salient

her love for her husband and for the sights and miracles of

existence they savored together:

The moss outside

and greener as

looks uwnderful, greener

the days

get wetter.

Almost 2

Now Four days

iveeks

gone by

III

two weeks

less.

and paint some more ceiling, being in your room helps. after writing to him almost daily with typewritten pages

I'll

later,

of news, she concluded,

full

/ like

How love

Three days

your room.

best being in

the dark beer?

and

Ank.

love

after that, there

coats

and tomorrow

Remains

But

still

was more of the same:

now

your room, the area ivith the 2 doors

Still painting

I hope

toward the

the niche

has two

get the last one so that that

street

and

done.

the radiator.

begins to look ivonderful.

abound here. Josef's father had been a housepainter, while someone who hired workmen for such tasks. Josef made art with paint the medium that Anni would gladly have opted which she only used now, in this menial way, to redo his over textiles Ironies

Anni's had been

— —

his

for

room

in his absence.

But no such factors or resentment entered her

conscious thoughts. Her delight was

total.

Two-and-a-half weeks

later,

she

reported,

I finished your room today, the awful radiator

with two coats

come

back.

early,

but

As a

and

ofi enamel,

noiv

now fine

can smell

made up your bed

special treat, I

white

itself out until you

today,

little

made me feel good.

Along with news of arrangements with the Sidney Janis Gallery on Josef's behalf with a keen response to his letters their lack), with chat about further evenings out and details of bank

New York made (or

statements and other aspects of domestic so ambivalent about her

same time intensely go there

new Monday!!!" The a

Most important:

grown

How

end of one

letter,

hairdresser

report

lessons

came

days

to cut excellently,

later:

fom

one of your students, Slutsky or so, someone again, perhaps Si. I think

much better already and gradually he shape when all that was cut wrongly has

hair into better

will

—

two of Josef's most successful knowing that the element of their sense their teacher's wife had to do with her

Sillman

—would have

felt

Anni was not being

frivolous; hair

In evaluating Josef 's students, if Anni that she

144

supposed

questionable.

Yet

all

five

it is

of form that mattered most to coif

who

back.

Robert Slutsky and

students at Yale

at the

ivants to continue ivith

you would agree that get

woman, who was

that I have a hairdresser ivho has a sense offormlll

Has taken drawing

and he

this

appearance, so seemingly plain while

self-conscious, also reported, at the

'And most important: will

own

life,

had

do was

wanted

refer to "the

was

a serious matter.

to denigrate

bearded ones."

any of them,

Not. 28.53

Juv7e I onlyDie Uberfahrt klingt nicht so besonders erholend! hope you were not too miserable and that you recovered on The menu looks enormous! the rest of the trip.

And by now I hope you are in Ulm and that it is what you Maybe Sofar I had a letter from Southhampton. had hoped for. another one v.ill come today.

Thanksgiving I was All goes well here and people are nice. next door at the Halls, with your photos, and all was reallynice. One afternoon the Chaets came with the archaeology One evening I had Si and Jim and girl and that was nice too. Sheilagh and she is going to take her Jeep station wagon to New York with Si and me to pick up the Cooper Union things. So that will I had offered to pay for all expenses involved. be Dec. 1. if there is not snow by then, as the weatherman has announced CCr these days. Today Wu has asked Kans & Bettyincluding children and me for dinner. I aim- embarrassed that by bringing the children he will have such a crowd. I They come asked him to bring them first for cocktails here. already early in the afternoon and ?.'u is taking them through the gallery. (

)

Paps writes he plans to stay till april. What then, I don't know, Hans writes he wants to take up the money problem.

Yesterday Si took me after lunch with them, to the upper part of the Gallery with the Asia things etc. Looks really fine. George Howe I have not reached yet. Never there. Do write him a postcard. I'll also try again. ^'Sf ^ t" ^v^ a y ^ ^ A nice note from Farnsworth, Chicago. And one from Bobby... I'll go there for Christmas. started painting your ciiling now, all the paper is off. slow. Put all your shirts have their new collars. So at least something gets done. I

It goes

The moss outside looks wonderful, greener and greener as the days get wetter.

Almost

weeks gone by!!!

two veeks less.

Now I'll go and paint some more ceiling, being in your room helps. so love,

<^vv^.<^

176. Letter

from Anni Albcrs

November

28, 1953.

to Josff Albers,

14s

tenimed for a second

Josef

Ulm

stint in

in the spring of 1955,

document both the feelings and the details that mattered to the .\lberses. Anni s voice repeals the same resened exuberance tbar is evident in her art, a comparable immersion in tactile and \4sual pleasures, and a need for emodonal connection that is as strong as the feeling for linkages of thread and shape. In a letter wrinen to "Juvel" on Mav iz, she assured him. "Here all is fine and I am not lonelv because I ha\e such a good feeling about us and the i~. to look forward to. Aug. i~ so again there are letters that

wiiai tbey

here

sai.-

VHjen

the

arri%"al

took laxi

i>ou leji,

She

date.~

tweed and

TTD'se^a really good coat, m^ersibU,

think vou

sidi,

saw

u-ill

were

still

rain-coat, inside-out-

apprvir, expensiie too, ~^,T7. In other stores

So now I have a good one

Twtlyino tijoi looked rizht.

TTie%-

also reported,

w Abrrcrombu and Fitch and bou^n

both wearing these coats when

too.

knew them

more than fifteen ^^ears laten in a \*ay the .-Vlberses sometimes looked like brother and sister as much as the}" did husband and wife, and the simple, generous cur of these coats with raglan slee\es gave them a comp>arable iook of timeless fashion. The warm tweed and practical waterproof material

were a

and appealing combination.

srviish

Art and other aspects of the visual world permeate dence.

Anni reported to Josef, of a show

"Tliere

a fi-ench painter in there, Manessier,

nne. he looks right and wiiat he writes

w^iom

beautihil,

show an equal concern

time, the leuers

Museum

at the

this correspon-

of Modem Art,

Uke. Pictures look

think."

At the same

Shordy before

for the fimadonal.

going to teach at dbe Ha}-stack School in Maine. .Anni informed Josef

Bought myselfsom£

light colored

and washable

cotton slacks for

Ofall places it wasfijudly Sean Roebuck where Ifound

l^imne.

some decent

ones. Tried Abercrombie etc.

And there too,

I bought myselfa birthday present, a little gray metal typewriter table on rollers, charming only ~.)0 amazingly enough. It comes packed in parts and on the 12th [fune 12, her birthday] I will get it out and put

Hope

so love

will

think

it together,

just right to roll around on

uvrk out when

and it seems At least that's what I think/

fiou will like it

own.

up.

its set

and love, from Ankele

.-\nd six

days

later,

on the

twelfth, this

woman, who

so relished

had received

dbe assembling of components, wTote to "Jm'el"

first

three birthday letters fi-om

really turned into a fine

birthday

— him on time — added. with your my new And now I am —I had around which "so

jxjwerful help" sitting

together

and was

^and

gray metal typewriter-table,

saved it for today, the putting

ofthe parts and it took me a good part ofthe morning interesting to do.

After JoseTs death, Anni found ries

little

dye room,

rolls

he was indifferent

me my first prints

easy to fault him; in her

rimes to her bad health, comf)eririve

looked like

wallf>a{>er 'j.

and

about the financial well-being that came to him

dme, she saw I said.

herself as equally difficult

The}' re like Easter e^s. If that s

have enough to the

last

eat.'").

years of their

sar\- less

that she

But

life

all

you

way

memotold

—

parricularly

secretive

lace in life.

("When he made

at least in the

THe

praint,

that

now we 11

ne\'er

them in wedding anniver-

often saw

together, through their fiftieth

than a year before Josef died in 19-6, and

At the same

his first squares,

as their great

Black

Mountain companions and housemates Ted and Bobbie Dreier knew them to be, the Alberses, in ^ite of the occasional squabble, were mutually

supponive teammates, intensdy lespeoful of each

other's dedication to art.

seriousness oi purpose,

and

titles

and acliie\enient. joset

iiuegrit)',

information on

otiier

back oi Annis

tlie

some

handwriting; was neater than hers. In

Anni voiced

tor her to use. Likewise,

Homages. In

them

her

fact, in spite of

much

glorious, so

on others

his

a preference for certain of Josef's

response,

initial

uhnn.ueK

slie

so that after Josef's death

of those over

because

he also suggested a color

cases,

which she had

toiuui

discovered that,

addition to the thousands of artworks he had already

on the backs

wrote the

al\va\'s

\\ea\ int;s

he had,

left her,

\'oiced particular

enthusiasm and

that he considered his ultimate achievements, written "N.F.S."

— "Property

not for sale

came

collection that

He had

mourning.

of A.A.

also

— but

So within

her period of deepest

— given her

alwa\s knew

this she

was

Josef's collection there

complete surprise

to her as a

the Hrst

of ever\' print edition.

Anni was proud

made

Fox

that Josef

Press.

that for years they

had selected the brown

was, after

were

the colorist.

all,

in different fielcis

the wea\er, while he pursued glass

was mainly involved,

helped, of course,

within the same arena

—

she was

and metal and wood and then paint

when both were printmakers

but even

different (he

second print she

for the

work was

the nature of their

in the late stage of his graphics, the

point at which Anni took up the medium, in color as the central issue, she

in line

and surface and the

competition was not

shop of Ken

Tyler,

went

he\'

knew

by side

side

where they made many of their

and offering suggestions.

on an artwork

of the process) that

particularities

a factor. Rather, they

better than to

and too — both were too — but they completely supported and

work and

the priorit\' of

—

— she

hollowing Josef's death decades

—Anni

pride, with a slightly arrogant

him manners.

behave

in the

knowledge of

when

She, after

all,

came from

had

face, "I

F'nglish, v\hich

made such

made him sound and

about

see

it!'"

his best

and

how

there was her

—

think,' she

his

own,

losef

knew none

felt:

Zastrow functioned his class

one

'And he

Zastrow

this;

insists that

relinc|uish the job

German government

pro-Nazi clippings

all

look at

you think and

that

them up and threw them

othcial.

losef 1

lis

arcnind the Lee Hall

room, the main place where people congregated

me, "while

an inter-

Mrs. Zastrow

'Do have

"If he said,

say,

day.

anecdote about Mrs. Zastrow and

Mrs. Zastrow's son was

course, picked

nurse and governess.

him. At Black

in English.

a telling

left

would

that Mrs.

Irish

also interpret for

sat in

too Teutonic, Anni

what you

doting mother regularly living

Anni

Anni demanded

herself.

a difference

woman named Fmily

Anni recounted

"I, of

Then

Anni had had an

F.nglish,

preter for Josef's teaching,

Josef

world where people served

they emigrated to America in 1933. This, too, reflected the class

Mountain, when

For one thing, she would say with

so.

fancy houses of art collectors.

So she could teach him

and

social,

him by nearly two

outlived

and superior look on her

difference of their backgrounds.

this

—

he did not. She could guide the son of a Westfalian laborer on

her;

interests

to a secont1ar\' sphere.)

often recalled the ways in which she had helped him; she

was immensely pleased to have done

teach

work together

respected each

(Other

in their li\es.

were relegated

all

work-

potentiall)' cantan-

strong-willed,

family, recreational

tr\-

kerous, for that other's

to the

prints, taking turns

Black Mountain.

in the Hreplace,"

Anni

told

honest and very careful Josef insisted, "You have no right

they aren't yours.'

.So

how

did he go about

iti*

picked them

up and put them into the back pages of the newspapers, which were thrown awav

ever\' morniii".

147

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; She

EngHsh

when

own

also rold a story at her

Once

to Josef.

expense about teaching

they were walking in a

"Browns

Josef saw a sign for

Anke: pasture?" Her answer was

field near Black Mountain and inquired, "Was ist das,

pasture,"

"Oh

certain:

very

that's

clear,

Juppi,

the opposite of future."

it's

Humor

was one of Anni's

Once, when

dark.

salient traits,

and

was often very

wife was visiting her in the hospital,

Anni was recovering from

broken hip, and

seemed

might go home the next

day, Katharine said, "So, if

and you're not here

Anni interrupted her with the

"Send a wreath."

When

Renwick Gallery

with a

stiff

come tomorrow instruction,

an exhibition of her work opened

Washington, D.C., and

New Haven

had come from

when

that the patient

in 1985 at the

well-meaning

who

visitor,

proudly presented her

just for the occasion,

and overarranged bouquet of flowers, the

presenter's face

aglow

with pleasure, Anni, in a wheelchair, put them on her lap with the words, "For

The woman stopped

casket."

even thought to

let

her off the

mind making people

not

In this respect, to receive

Museum a in

Anni Albers

the opening ot an

exhibition of her work, the

Gallery of the National

American

Renwick

Museum

Art, Smithsonian Institution,

Washington, D.C., June

12, 1985.

in the

once

not sure

Anni

diplomatic efforts to get Anni

failed at all

whom

this

just to see her,

world.

It is

and a phone

call

that day

not having

come

she was eager to hear. She had no trouble

amiable

museum

professional,

who had made

the

loved her work, and, additionally, would help her

no wonder then

behind the Alberses' coming

museum

mood

she was in a bad

a digestive disorder

from

a friend

journey

thank you; she did

outside her chosen circle uncomfortable.

Modern Art because

being truly nasty to ijH.

a simple

an extremely thoughtful and courteous curator from the

combination of

from

in her tracks.

hook with

that Philip Johnson, the central figure

America and the curator of Anni's

first

Museum

of Modern Art in 1949, told me that he had realized early on that Anni was not someone who would act in

major

her

own

almost

show, at the

had no

best interests, that she

as if

instinct for public relations.

she associated gentility with fraudulence, good

sort of artistic shilly-shallying that infuriated her in people like

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;someone both she and Josef considered

himself

and

associate

Johnson

their friend

Mies van der Rohe. Alas, there was a side of Anni that was

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;and not

simply perverse

very nice.

But when happy, Anni could be an angel. Back trouble with the line-up of the

with the black.

long, tense

through without the desired sat patiently.

was

the

a traitor to their artistic

Modernism he had once embraced through

credo and to the

PR with

brown

Fox

Press, there

second print

was

in juxtaposition

hour followed. Proof after proof came effect.

As she reviewed each

tions to the stripper

in the

paced back and forth

sheet, she

restlessly.

Anni

simply made further sugges-

and pressman, nodding her head "no" or smiling

Her object was to avoid white hairlines knew was that there was something about this

"yes" at their latest adjustments.

between shapes. image, both in

What

its

systematization and lack of simple resolution, that was

to resemble, or at least simulate,

of plant growth

as elucidated

Gems, Anni pointed

out,

both the structure of gems and the nature

by Goethe

depended on

in his Metamorpljosis of Plants.

irregularity in their cellular struc-

ture in order to be strong. Plant growth, according to the passages she

cherished in Goethe, revealed a repetition of

were three parts to the leaves.

now

roots, there

were

She had evoked both of these

systems;

there

qualities in her initial design.

and

But

she had to resolve the hairline problem; having achieved her well-

thought-out design, she wanted to refine

148

number

also three parts to the stems

according to the dictates of her

ever-demanding

eye.

There must

and

also be a clarit)'

and mystery inherent

as the playfulness

powerful

serenit}' as

complex pattern achieved

in this

through printcrK' o\erlapping. The tools of the process were essential to the creation of the artwork, and

now

compliance with the

by working

artists e\'e.

manipulated

to be

could be realized

a result that

Without condescension, she

the technicians involved in the process.

ed them not mereK'

coworkers but rather

watched the pressman use

some

change the

sections of the image to

avoid the white gaps in various places created wider gaps in others. tried

blowing up one pattern with the camera

pated

— but

destroyed the whole.

this

suggested using the Rives

would make

For Anni,

was

BFK

— here

working

the stripper partici-

kept pacing. Finally the foreman

paper saved for the

because the flimsy

a difference like the

treat-

as heroes.

wrench

his

a hair one way, then the other. Lining up

ness

oiil\'

tandem, and no one could ha\c been more respectful of

had

the\'

was

final prints; its thick-

and thin

of thick

paper was expanding.

trial

fibers, of jute

with

cellophane: a world of texture and reality she well knew, lb conserve the

remaining Rives, we

Anni foimd

print.

first

brown on some

ran the

that the red

second print on top of the discards from the that she took samples to

And

walls.

show

discards from the

— proofing — looked

and brown together first

this

so architectural

architects as possible patterns for tiled

fortunately the heavier paper

made

the difference.

pressman had touched up the plate by hand while

profound admiration and delight ran the print, and

— she approved

Italian bread,

afternoon printing session,

ing out to the car. "I

father

had gone out

at best

—

Anni

we were head-

meant

it.

her anxious. She was a poor passenger

of doing a

lot

of back-seat driving when

—and now we encountered

torrential rains. These,

reminded her of Mexico, where they had gone fourteen times,

when

initially

made

drive, however,

clearly in the habit

said,

to procure a loaf,

leaving with treasures," the former master of

the Bauhaus said enthusiastically; she truly

Josef was at the wheel

artist's last.

explaining that

Anni along with some scratch pads

the

While we were monitoring the

"Josef, a true Westfalian, lives for bread."

Our

—with

the line-up at

the

roller,

we were done.

At lunch, Anni had praised the

which he handed

Once

was on the

thus getting rid of the few white lines that remained

first

of the

enormous

they were nearly penniless. Mexico had had an

influence on both of them; Anni said that "art was everv^where there": in

peoples clothing,

in the

in their beads, in the

cheapest country pottery.

than a verbal one.

was

paint trim on the adobe houses,

a visual

would not normally

link

world

— more, perhaps,

Anni with Antonin Artaud,

but given Artaud's passion for nonverbal communication, gesture

and

facial

and the

ear for the voice of the ancient gods,

when

life

Artaud

his

emphasis on

expression rather than text, his feeling for the exotic and

he fled Paris in the 1930s,

as sophisticated

role of

Mexico

in Artaud's

have come to see Anni and Josef and

European Moderns of the same camp

—even

the

peyote that flavored Artaud's every thought in the Mexican villages he visited,

where he might well have walked by Anni and Josef would have

been anathema

to the artistic pair,

who were

so intent

on control and

rationalism.

But although Anni was happ\' to have the sheets of rain evoke

memories of I'enayuca and Oaxaca, they alarmed all

accounts had been quite resolute

visibly

cars

on the edge

and

of panic.

her; the

woman who

her flight from Nazi Ciermanv was

offered to follow the lead of a few other

pull over to the side of the

highway

until the

downpour

let

up.

149

Anni gently implored. Under the

"Please,"

shelter of an overpass,

turned

off the motor.

Anni's face betrayed considerable relief "You deserve a reward,"

she said in a tone

been wanting to

jocular than patronizing. "Well,

know about

Patil Klee.

think

know

you the story of

will tell

you've

his fiftieth birthday." It

was 1929. Klee, Anni told me, was her "god

also her next-door neighbor.

and unapproachable

aloof

—

he was

at the time";

Although the Swiss painter was,

in her eyes,

Christopher carrying the weight

"like Saint

—she admired him tremendously. She had watercolors — purchase having been

of the world on his shoulders" even acquired one of his

the

a rare

public admission of her family's wealth (she told

embarrassed by the appearance 179- Josef Albers,

Biarritz VIII

'zg,

Paul

Klee, (Guetary)

1929. Collage of three

photographs, mounted on board

The

Josef and

Hispano

Stiiza that

Anni Albers Foundation,

corridor of the

were hiring

which Klee tacked up

new Bauhaus

Anni heard

birthday,

Bethany.

a small

that she

had been so

Dessau Bauhaus of her uncles

at the

she had begged them to leave immediately)

one of the exhibitions

(detail).

most recent work

his

As her god approached

building.

in a

—out of

that three other students in the

his

in a

major

weaving workshop

plane from the Junkers aircraft plant, not far away, so

that they could have this mystical, other-worldly man's birthday presents

descend to him from above; he was beyond having

gifts arrive

on the

earthly plane.

were to

Klee's presents

angel.

Anni made the curled

arrive in a large

hair for

Other Bauhauslers made the

shavings.

from Lyonel Feininger,

out of

package shaped

shimmering

tiny,

the angel

gifts

would

brass

carry: a print

lamp from Marianne Brandt, some small objects

from the wood workshop.

Anni was not

l^^^l

^^^^V^BI^'^*^^/

originally scheduled to be

on the small Junkers

when

aircraft

from which the angel was

airfield

with her three friends, the pilot deemed her so light that he

she arrived at the

first flight.

As the

cold October air penetrated her coat and the pilot joked with the

young

invited her to get

on board. For

to descend, but

of them,

all

was the

ifts*-

weavers by doing complete turnabouts

open cockpit, Anni was so obsessed with responding with

fear,

they huddled together in the

abstract art that, rather than

what struck her most was the sudden awareness

of a new visual dimension. She had been living on one optical plane, and

now saw from 180. Paul Klee, Gifts for I

1928.

{Gabe fiir

I),

Tempera on gessoed canvas mounted

on wood, 40 X

55.9

(15

The Museum of Modern

K X 22

Art,

Gift of James Thrall Soby.

inches).

New York,

very different vantage point.

She served the mission by spotting hers

and

Josef's, in the

As planned, they

building. crash.

row of let

Klee's

house next door to

masters' houses a short

out the

gift. It

But Klee was pleased nonetheless

unusual presents and their delivery

—

walk from the main

landed with

a bit

in a painting. Josef,

impressed. Later that afternoon he asked Anni

however, was

less

she had seen the

idiots flying

around overhead. Anni smiled mischievously

this. "I told

him

of a

he would memorialize the

as she recalled

was one of them," she said with her usual tone of

unperturbed defiance.

Although

in the

course ol time Anni

came

remember

Joset as indifferent

and comfort, when we pulled into the driveway of their house completing our drive when the torrents lessened to mere rain, he

to her needs after

opened the automatic garage door his wife

the

any unnecessary steps

window

for quite

handed him some lated as

may

some

prints

we made

in the rain.

time.

have been waiting at

he two of them were ebullient

and the bread;

have been, seemed

the turn in order to spare

He must

their life together, austere

panoply of pleasures

Fhey were, of course, both people

for

whom

at that

as she

and

iso-

moment.

the idea of survival

had

meaning

real

because ot the struggles ot the Bauhaus;

iniiiallv

then the horrible

Nazi Germany;

realities oi

after that,

in safer territory, the intense financial pressure at

unhappy departure from

subsequently, hallowing Joscts vicissitudes of old age

palpable

relief.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;and

flict,

Anni's safe return

may

this

that breaking a date

the\-

were

Yale;

now

the

the storm afforded

them

be one of the reasons that Anni took par-

ticular delight in aborting plans entirely

told

even once

Black Mountain and,

because of bad weather. She once

was one of life's great pleasures, comparable

only to returning something to a department store. Dressed and ready to

New

for an outing to

phone

York, only to have a

because of inclement weather the meeting in the

Anni, rather than showing disappointment, looked

been given an unexpected

treat. In

Ulm, she wrote, with regard

my enormous

"To a

two days

my name

even

scheduled half an hour awav,

can get

following

per told

was too bad that

trip

Press, the

pressman and

of our customers were not

all

men and

111

thoughts straight."

with Anni to Fox

Anni. Unlike the advertising

"The Bridgeport group,

Annie Alkers of N.Y.! Think

spelled wrongly, if

Josef,

bad. Everything they touch they do wrong-

feel

The day

course there were other factors as

had written to

speak about Quality there,

that

someone who had

of the letters she sent to josef in

to a lecture

are having."

earlier she

Weavers Guild, makes me ly,

be rescheduled,

pleasure m\' talk in Bridgeport was canceled because of

new snowstorm we

well;

one

suggesting that

call

cit)'

purchasing agents,

who

strip-

said that

they did not care what the machine could or could not do as long as they got what they wanted, she

worked

tandem with

the equipment.

"The

lady with the cane," the bindery foreman added, "really liked the shrink

wrap

too.

She figured out right away

same poetry and

the

how

lightness that demarcate her artwork.

with the ideals that Gropius had established ing art school he had opened in

had rendered

nil

machinery and

and

creativity to

be the

Indeed, for the

have a

aid,

common

and

voice,

And

keeping

Bauhaus, the pioneeryears earlier, she

fifty

art.

She had allowed

and technical

not the foe, of inspiration.

The

restraints

practical

were one.

spiritual

had died, the

at the

Weimar more than

the boundaries between craft

possibilities to

and the

does the corners."

had brought into the printing plant some of

in her person she

rest of

her

life,

even after Josef and

living Bauhausler kept the vision alive

last

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

all

the others

as her art will

forever.

Notes

Ills

ir.msl.uion oi the sixth-century bc

Chinese philosopher a

handwritten note

the Josef and

This

and

Anil] are

quoted from

Anni's papers

all

troiii

translation

from

Nov.

pre-nicd student at

this

information

in a

conversations with the in

preparation hir

artist

memo

19, 1998.

All letters are in

Anni Albers with Nicholas Fox Weber

1981.

Liveright.

|osel

//,

in the living

room

80S

Birchwood Drive, Orange, Connecticut.

1930), p. 118. 5.

1974 and 1975

181.

and Fox

Bertrand Russell. The Conquest of

Huppinea (London: Horace

while the author was interviewing the

on tape

Camilla Lyons,

provided

subsequeni staiciiicnts by

author that took place

Yale College as well as an art historian,

Anni Albers Foundation;

may bc her own German source. it

.md .\mii

Albers Foundation archives and are i|uoied as they appear.

book devoted

to her work.

151

Anni Albers 1899-1994 Pandora Tabatabai Asbaghi

182.

Anni Albers,

ca. 1908.

Anni Albers

left

us a

compact but

Albers rarely expressed regret

pure legacy that comprises not only

about the necessity of leaving

her artworks but also her writings

Germany

and other statements, which,

future in the United States;

together, provide a clear guideline

about design and

for thinking art.

artist,

teacher, for

designer, writer,

detached observer of industrial,

and

somewhat

political,

artistic

develop-

ments. Her curiosity was that of a true pioneer,

and her work

consistently reveals a deep respect for the universal truths

an uncertain

rather, she preferred to dwell

the consequent opportunities that

most of the century

she was an interested

in 1933 for

of the

came

to her

and Josef As they

explored Mexico and the American

Southwest, they were both deeply affected scape,

by the

scale

of the land-

aesthetic marvels of

the indigenous art

and

architecture,

and, in Mexico, by the beauty

of the ancient culture that seemed to

grow

in the

ground

in the

past as well as a search for solutions

lorm of the tiny Pre-Columbian

only possible

artifacts that

Connecting

in the present.

craft to industry, uni-

Was

fying art with design, generously

sharing her learning with others, she

made few

own

claims about her

originality,

speaking instead

of rediscovery, re-invention.

they collected with a

shared passion. it

Albers's physical dis-

ability or the social

and

cultural

environment of her past that never quite allowed her to

move

freely

and express herself with complete independence? Under her elegance

and modesty, and despite the sure

15^

hand and voice

in her art

and

her writing, there lay an ambition for greater recognition that at

1899-1921

odds with her rechisive nature.

183.

Hans Farman (Fleischmann)

Annelise Else Frieda Fleischmann 184. Lotte

hfe,

Here, an accoimt ot Albers's

arranged around the artists

Charlottenburg section oi Berlin

Lessingstrasse in the

words along with those oi people

on June

who knew

eldest of three children

her well or

studied her

art,

who

have

proves that her

legacy to us stands alone

and

12,

1899.

born

and Toni Ullstein Fleischmann

"[When

not only for

growing up] her mother's

historic value

to teach us art in

can continue

about the place oi

our dailv

lives.

Siegfried Fleischmann (1873-1963)

(1877-1946).

its

ca. 1920.

She was the

worthy of our consideration today, but also tor what

1930,

photographed by Josef Albers.

Anni Albers was born

was

she was family,

the Ullsteins of publishing fame,

seemed

slightly

her father's turer)

brother,

commercial

to her,

furniture manufac-

aristocratic."' Albers's

Hans Farman (born

1909), who changed his name from Fleischmann when he moved to

the United States in 1936, notes that the

women

of the Ullstein

family were well educated, but

were expected to "get married on their

own

whereas the sons

inherited the [family] fortune."'

Hans's wife, Elizabeth (Betry), notes, "[Albers]

swam

against the

153

Benfey (nee Fleischmann),

185. Siegfried

Fleischmann, 1930,

photographed by Josef Albers.

186. ca.

Toni Ullstein Fleischmann,

1940.

Stream, she was rebellious and she

resented her mother.

beautifuL that the character of a

Anni had

person came out

some kind of artistic longings and leanings in her. Her family, in didn't feel the artistic her mind .

leanings as she did. "'Around 1912 the family

ment

moved

Kurfiirstendamm. Albers's

a photograph, for

than in

better

instance.

of my mother, ivhich I took under my arms

made a with

terrible [portrait]

my mother

to try to get to

Dresden, where Kokoschka lived,

to a large apart-

at 7 Meinekestrasse,

much

near the

and see

sister,

could learn.

if he

had classes where

And he had one

look at

and said, "Why do you paint?"

Lotte Benfey (1900-1987), recalled,

that

"We had

I was fifteen or sixteen so that was

eight or nine rooms.

There was the music room that was only used was

Opa

room

the smashing ansiver

There

for Anni's painting.

and antiques.

had

cent, her

Albers was an adoles-

mother arranged

have an

art tutor. Later,

for her

from

1916 to 1919, she studied painting

with Martin Brandenburg, an Impressionist painter. [In

my]

portraits that

early teens.

I saiv

[Oskar] Kokoschka

had drawn and I thought

154

the

they were

and that was

end of that.' In 1920 Albers attended the

Kunstgewerbeschule (school of applied

loved to go to art museums."^

When to

[Siegfried Fleischmann]

furniture

for parties.

arts) in

Hamburg.

After two

months she was disappointed with the learning

program and sought

out other sorts of instruction.

1922-24

adventurous

Fortunately a leaflet came

way from there

the

Bauhaus [on which]

was a print by Feininger, a

something; that

cathedral,

that wasn't true at

ver)'

great

through some connections

body told

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

[that

experimental place. "

That looks more

what I

it] .

it,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;some-

Berliner

a seamstress

so this

a week, the

who was

used to

She

but was

Albers entered the mandatory

Vorkurs (preliminary course)

Bauhaus on April

studying with Cieorg first

going on fom all

21, 1922,

Muche

in the

semester and with Johannes

Itten in the second.

Well the Bauhaus today

like Klee

and

sides.

Kaiuinisky

And this

to find their kind ofgeneral

searching was very exciting. this

what

vacuum.

And

I called the "creative

Ihe Bauhaus

leaflet that

attracted Albers to

Weimar had

been written by Walter Ciropius,

admitted on her second attempt.""

the

in a

They were starting

and laundress applied

at first,

was

was a great

weren't recognized as the g>-eat masters.

to the experimental school.

was rejected

there

I thought,

"In a rented room, with a bath

young

searchijig

there in 1^22

And people

way.

once

muddle and

new

the founder of this art

and design.

school of

stated that "any

person of good repute, without regard to age or sex,

education

whose prcNious

deemed adequate by

the Council of Masters, will be

admitted,

as far as

ca. 1923,

Lutia Moholy-Nag)'.

was a readymade

all.

Anni Albers,

phomgr.iphed by

was a new

tried."

available only

18-.

i)iteresting one, to

But when I got

spirit.

and I thought that was beautiful and also at that time,

and

which you went and were taught

space permits."'

thought of always as a school, a very

155

i88.

Georg Muche and members

weaving workshop

Weimar, extreme

ca. 1923.

at the

of the

Bauhaus,

Anni Albers

at the

But despite the school's apparent

workshop and there was already

commitment

somebody in there [JosefAlbers]

gender equality,

Gropius wrote to a

woman who

whom

with

right.

applied for admission in 1920, is

"It

not advisable, in our experience,

women work

that

craft areas

For

forth.

such

in the

this reason a

at the

textiles;

women.

are

fundamentally opposed to the education of

the weaving

bookbinding and

pottery also accept

women

as architects."'"

The entering students had enter a workshop

and

after

there.

completing the

Vorkurs, Albers reluctantly entered

Bauhaus which works particularly with

was not chance of any kind

offurther work

women's

formed

allow a second person because there

carpentry and so

section has been

heavy

I would have loved

be in that workshop but they didn't

workshop

in 1923.

beginning was far fivm

what I had hoped for:

my hands

fate

put

into

limp threads! Threads

build a future? But distinst turned into belief and I

the workshops

was on

Albers credited

Gunta

'"'

way. Stolzl

I thought I might try all weren't

for

quite suited for me. For instance, I

claiming that she had "almost an

didn't

want wall painting because

I didn't like climbing on ladders

and I

didn't

want metal workshop so hard and pointed.

because

it is

I didn

want woodworking where

you

had

there

to lift

was one

heavy beams,

left

and

that was a glass

most of her

early training,

animal feeling for

textiles."

who was down and Sometimes we sat

/ learned fi-om Gunta,

a great

teacher.

tried to do

together

it.

sat

and tried to

solve problems

of co}istruction." In the

weaving workshop,

Albers assisted in dyeing yarns and

made

her

first

wall hangings

and

yard fabrics. She and her fellow

156

students participated in the official

Bauhaus exhibition

first

Haus

with

Alberss

appeared in 1924,

met

first

Bauhaus

as part oi Gropius's

advanced rapidly

Bauhaus. In

Weimar, they were

to instructor

Umbo.

190.

had

that time Josef

from student

she wrote:

it,

Bauhaus, Dessau, 1919. photographed

Josef Albers at the

married.

drive to elicit public support for the

Albers

published writing

textiles.

first

189. Josef Albers in his studio at the

In 1925, three years after

in 1923,

furnishing the experimental

am Horn

1925-26

losct Albers

house what

needs today

functionalform.

Its

give the

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

1923,

Master

goals are the

This

of things, suitable and a new type oj beauty.

new beauty

Today a thing

form tion,

not

style.

and when

when

beautifiil

in agreement with

has been

well-chosen materials."

in 1925.

"It

was

after their

work bore

its

its func-

made of

They

191.

wedding

traveled to

few years

that their art

the closest resemblance.

Each was responding

possibilities

new

of abstraction, to the

idea of playfulness with the figure-

ground

relationship, to the comforts

afforded by control. Right angles, solid expanses

of color, and

pure bands of black became part

of their new language.

"'~

Ihat same vear the Bauhaus

moved from

\*^cimar to

its

new

Modernist glass-walled structure

Dessau, designed by Gropius. But the aesthetic

harmony

ca. 1926,

Josef Albers, stained-glass window,

Berlin, 1927.

honeymoon.

in the

balcony

junior Bauhaus

Italy lor their

clear structure materials,

and

workshop

of the Vorkurs

Ullstein Printing

The Bauhaus attempts

photographed by Marianne Brandt.

at the school,

in the glass

Ann! and

of the Bauhaus building, Dessau,

that

Gropius imagined would flourish

157

Works, Templehof,

192. Josef Albers,

Anni Sommer

25, 1923.

Collage of two photographs,

mounted on cardboard, (11 "At

X 16

/«

29.7 x 41.7

at the

Bauhaus proved

wall hangings were published in

to be an

the

elusive goal.

Concerned

and

ivith form

ivith

German

and

journal Offset

in Tapis et Tissus, a portfolio

inches).

The Josef and Anni

Albers Foundation,

Bethany JAF: PH-423.

of objects surrounding that is, ivith design we will

the shape

—

have

to look

—

at the things

we have

selected

shifted

made. With the evidence of our

work

before us,

verdict.

Today

we cannot

it tells

escape

its

us ofseparate-

ofsegregation andfragmentation, I interpret rightly. if ness,

For here we find two

distinct

points of departure: the scientific

and

technological,

and

the artistic.

Too often these approaches arrive at separate results instead

of at a

all-inclusive form that

embodies

single,

the whole of our needs: the need

for the functioning of a thing the need for

and

an appearance that

responds to our sense

ofform."' In 1926 Albers began to

work on the double and jacquard looms. Color illustrations of her

by Sonia Delaunay.'^

In Dessau, the Bauhaus's focus

place

from

craft to

production.

most curious change took

when

the idea

of a practical

purpose, a purpose aside from the

purely artistic one, suggested itself to this

group of weavers. Such a

thought, ordinarily in the fore-

ground, had not occurred

having been the problems

and

of the material

of handling

it.

itself

This considera-

of usefulness brought

about a

profoundly difrerent conception. shift took

place from the free play

with forms

a logical building of

structures.'"

Women

students occupied

an ambiguous space "[In] the

at the

Bauhaus.

widening polarization

between industry and

158

them,

absorbed in

the discoveries of unlimited

ivays

tion

so deeply

craft

women latter.

were identified with the

industriahzation increased, the role

of the designer gained

and

attracted males.

lost

ground.

of the weavers

in status

Women

The ambivalence nowhere

observe

that in ancient myths from

parts of the world deity,

many

was a goddess, a

students asked Paul Klee to teach

who brought

the inven-

program

specifically geared

93 1,

when he

startling,

for today

of men than with weaving

perceiving the world. to the student

made

of human and natural creation are essentially one; that art

women.

order of things.

Later,

as one

of the weaver's

to the foreground

feminine

role in it

in our eyes."

and

tasks

moved

thus the

has become natural

proposed

the basis of

in the

aimed way of

work: that the wellsprings

have their roots

as the

what Klee himself

closer to the inclination

traditions established, embellishing

and science

selfsame

The process

Klee taught, while rationalistic,

was ultimately nonrarional.""

Although Albers revered Klee,

One of his my head that understand anything and

she later admitted, classes

was

I didn't

so far over

159

Atelier,

'29,

1929.

Collage o{

six

photographs,

(11

29.7 x 41.7

%. X i6/Âť inches).

The

Josef and Anni Albers Foundation,

Bethany JAF: PH-2.

form of a important

inculcating a specific

his

toward

resigned from the

process leading to

believed and

thought

Bauhaus. "Klee's repeated insistence

work was not

Josef Albers, Klee

Dessau

mounted on cardboard,

weaving, which he taught until

a process ofstructural organization thinking in terms ofstructure seems

developed

a class in design. Klee

of weaving to mankind. When we realize that weaving is primarily

tion

this

weaving workshop

that the ultimate

writing.""' It is interesting

female

193.

In 1927 the

better expressed than in their

own

1927-32

As mechanization and

194. 195.

Dessau,

197.

and

196. Josef

and Anni

ca. 1925.

Albers,

had

to leave.

Klee

and his

Also in 1927 Albers designed

Anni and Josef Albers,

Oberstdorf, Germany, 1927-28.

198. Josef ca. 1935.

and Anni Albers,

I was not yet ready for thinking."

of [travel] when we were still at the Bauhaus and married not for a

—

very long time. This

was wonderful

the Theater Cafe Altes in Dessau

away from the parents' choice vacations when ive always went of

and the curtain

Bavaria

wall coverings

and curtains

for

for a theater in

—

winter in one of the

Oppeln. These projects required

wettest corners, Oberstdorf.

new

thought [instead] sun

approaches. It is really interesting to

trate like trate

concen-

architect has to concen-

on the functioning ofa house,

I enjoyed concentrating on what

so on.

we went .

And I

and sea and 1 found a banana boat and to Tenerife, to the Canaries.

was such a small boat and

took three weeks to go there. It

[a] specific material demanded. I

was quite shaky and there were only

developed a

twelve people.'''

materials,

of wall-covering ivhich at the time I did series

was nonexistent

make them

really.

And I tried

so that they

were

Despite Albers's dislike of

Oberstdorf she and Josef did vacation there in the winter of

partly even light-refecting, that they

1927-28. Albers's

could be brushed

recalled, "I

be fixed straight

wall

IV ith out

shapes. So

off,

that they could

and easily on

the

pulling into different

specific task sets

you

—you took

house.

to the barn.

/ was always the one

160

who thought

for four

every year

your technique."

a trip to the C'anary Islands.

the governess

The

go climbing at

Lotte,

Oberstdorf in Bavaria. ...

was what you did

a very interesting way of dealing with your choice of material, with In July 1927 the Alberses took

sister,

went twenty-lour times

and

—

home and

cook and

lived in a peasant

peasants .

the

weeks

moved out

Anni

didn't like to

she would stay

paint and read.""'

In 1928

Bauhaus

Gropius

the

left

to return to private

architectural practice,

and Hannes

Meyer, a Swiss architect, took

Breuer,

Deutschen CiewerLschaftsbundes-

(rear center)

Moholy-Nagy

of Gropius's departure.

moved

house vacated

wake

the

Hannes Meyer was building a

there

Moholy-Nagys

make a able.

Klees and the Kandinskys. Albers

in the

and from September the following year the

fall

December

and again

she replaced Stolzl

as acting director.

In the 1929

recess,

and

in the auditori-

echo.

And he

if I could think of a ivay

textile

that

would be

suit-

The usual solution at that time '20s

the walls.

was that you put

The

little fibers

I'eli'et

And of course

was

be at all practical in a room

if the velvet

used by hundreds of people so very often

would have

be a dark

Otherwise you could see all the

marks offingerprints and so on. And I had an idea that if I .

the Alberses traveled to Avignon,

Geneva, in

Biarritz,

August

and

Paris

and

to Barcelona for the

absorbed the

sound.

color.

summer

oj subduing this echo, if we could

and became neighbors of the

became an assistant in the weaving workshop under Stolzl's direction,

was an

asked

into the master's

b\'

architect.

large school

resigned in the

Meyer

schule in Bernau, for which

was the

and Lucia and Laszlo

Alberses

199. Josef

Herbert Bayer, Marcel

his place.

made a

was made

surface that

out of a kind of cellophane

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;and

International l^xposition, where

cellophane just was coming in

I.udwig Mies van der Rohe

new material we had been in Florence, Italy, and I had bought a little crocheted cap made oj this

and

Lilly

German

as a

Reich had designed the exhibits.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Also in 1929 Albers designed a wall-covering material for the

and Anni Albers

auditoriimi of the Allgemeinen

new

161

ca. 1925.

with Bauhaus friends,

zoo. Walter Gropius, 1930, photographed

by Josef Albers.

material.

used

And I unraveled it and the first attempt

it for

auditorium of the Allgemeinen

Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundesschule, Bernau, Germany, 1929 (see

showing the

cat. no. 127),

reverse side with label

indicating the reflection of light as

and

ofabsorption I put

this velvet quality 201. Wall-covering material for the

interesting construction into

the back

of this

tnaterial.

on the surface a

and in

quality

had

light-reflecting

the back the sound-

And this I don't think but that

went into production.

was made on machines,

was made in workshops made yard goods. And it was

used for worked.

this .

auditorium.

And it

.And the Zeiss

Ikon

Works in Germany made a kind of analysis

of how the

surface worked.

shown

this

was

Moderner

an exhibition

Modern textiles. During the summer she traveled with Josef to of

San Sebastian, Spain, and

to the

and Lake Maggiore

in Italy.

Their

mented

in Josefs

travels are

docu-

photographs. In

August 1930 Mies van der Rohe

Meyer as director of the Bauhaus, and appointed Reich as replaced

the

new

director of the weaving

workshop.

At the important Deutsche

light-reflecting .

The same

in Ausstellung

Bildivirkereien,

Tyrol, Ascona,

absorbing quality.

analyzed by Zeiss Ikon, Berlin.

auditorium in 1930.

year two of Albers's works were

Bauausstellung

(German building

quite an intriguing kind of textile

exhibition) in Berlin in July 1931,

engineering.'"

Albers's

Albers later that

really

.said

ot this material

Stadt Berlin Prize.

was something I am

happy

to sign

with

for that was a completely

my name, new

approach.''

Bauhaus diploma

lor the wall-

covering material for the Bernau

October 1932 the Bauhaus

was forced

power

in the local

and cut funding

Dessau

after

came

government

to the school.

Mies van der Rohe reopened the school as a private institution in Berlin,

162

to close in

the National Socialist party to

Albers was awarded her

work was awarded the

and

for the next six

Germans To Tench Art Near Here

M-hool mere until HtUor't poUclri oaujcO lD«d lb« IacuUt of BUok UouniAln coUcfa <l«p»rUnmi In Uie coll«fe

Germans On Faculty At Black Mountain School And Frau

Josef

Named

»u. which wma world ramou*

Albers

Art There

brought to Black MountAlct coltLe ODlj c«U»g« In tttc Uoltcd

u'rro

with VtOStmov JoMf and ten. ol DeoMU. GcrmADr

toioe Tbe Kboot ol art close bK*ua« ot the natloual CAtlODbl policies ol the

Instructors In

Pnu

Allojtrue-

l«S«-

Statu uQdcr direct faculty cootroi, by lUo New York Muaeum of- Art.

• ait dcpftftmcnt hai been csUblUlitcl at Bl*ek Mountain tots.

col-

let:* at

Blue RItJgo ntMt hfw,

pTOlcasor and Frsu Alb«r* > ver; until rrctntly mcinb«n ol Ibe tacultT Of the Baubaua adiool In Dt*-

months

— during which time moved

Alberses

to Berlin,

the

they hved in an apartment at

202. Asheville Citizen,

1933-36

where

As the Bauhaus was forced close,

203. Josef

Black Mountain College,

of their

28 Sensenburgerallee in the suburb

of Charlottenburg

from

—

a disused factory

near Asheville, North Carolina,

building in

was searching

the Steiglitz neighborhood. April

1933, the

II,

school was again

forced to close after the National

gained control of the

Socialists

national government. Mies van

der

Rohe protested and obtained

official

consent to reopen the

school four months

a new, small, experimental college,

operated

later,

but the

its

art

someone

for

program. Philip Johnson

M.M. Warburg,

and Edward

Museum

Modern Art

both

new

fledgling curators at the

New

through

York, learned of

this

Theodore (Ted)

Dreier,

one

of the

schools founders. Johnson and

Warburg had both

visited the

conditions that accompanied this

Dessau Bauhaus, and Johnson was

permission were so onerous that

in Berlin in the

summer

of 1933.

the decision of the faculty to close

very great

who now has a name, then we knew as a

the school officially and

somewhat

spoiled, ifiteresting student

on August

"Anni

10, 1933,

he announced

finally.

age thirty-four and

her husband at age forr\'-five were sucidenly without jobs and had little

work

hope in

continuing their

an atmosphere rapidly

becomin"

hostile to abstract art."'"

Philip Johnson,

from Harvard. in Berlin

was

and I had made

experiments with different materials, strawlike materials. visiting Lilly Reich,

who

He was .

was

of the weaving Philip was there

practically in charge

workshop.

[at Lilly Reich's apartment],

and he

was shown materials, and somehow

163

and Anni Albers on the

Uving quarters

Campus ca. 1937.

head

December

1933.

of Black

steps

the Blue Ridge

Mountain College,

204-

Anni

Albers, Black

Mountain

College, ca. 1935.

205. Josef Albers

in the

doorway I met him at

Reich's,

on the deck outside

the dining hall at the Lake

Eden campus

of Black Mountain College,

206. Student dance

ca. 1935.

on the verandah

of Robert E. Lee Hall

the Blue Ridge

and I said,

Would you be to

photographed by Josef Albers.

us!'

and they

big,

do with practical

all

had

and and so them and

with various transparencies

"Now who made them?

on.

And in he

said,

that.

America?

the door

And it

United

tickets.

was just the high time For instance, the

closed.

kind of background

had the wrong

in Hitler's

and so on and we said,

States.

Johnson

Warburg

recalls, "It

was the

about Black Mountain and the

come I

"Well,

America

said, 'Let's get

work.

them

want .

over.'

seemed the most natural thing

in the world. all

the

think he [Eddie]

money

couple arrived in the S.S. Europa 1933. Josef

Bauhaus was

164

left,

come

17, 1933,

Black Mountain College, to come

paid

when he like to

August

for us to leave.

ideas

"...

"Would you

them, on behalf of the trustees of

And I said, "No, they are mine." And he said, "But she never me about

come

idea that the AJberses might

I saw

these at Lilly Reich's.

told

after six weeks

combination of Eddie knowing

cleaned in some specific way,

said,

was

asking us

agreed to fund their steamship

ideas, strawlike

looked at

letter

wrote to the Alberses, inviting

to the

material that could be brushed off or

And he

I would love

to show you also some of my things. And he came in the afternoon and I put out my wall hangings. They

were all

we got a

this neivly founded college."'

interested in corning

a cup of tea with

campus of Black Mountain College, ca. 1937,

of course. "And

Lilly

"Oh, you are here.

late.

New

The

York on

on November

24,

wrote to Kandinsky,

"We were met by colleagues.

out."'"

four Bauhaus

were twelve hours

Four hotels had been booked.

Four journalists were waiting to

known

interview us. First niglit dinner at

of her designs,

the Dreiers'

with Miss Katherine

Dreier. Very lively.

Museum

of Modern Art very good. Brancusi

not only tor the uniqueness

which

directly 'into the material' but for

her experiments with materials.' is

not enough that

should

textiles

exhibition very beautiful. Arranged

Duchamp who we met on this occasion. A wonderful person.""

almost fearfully

at the

lavish tapestries

of the hotel lounge.

Albers spoke to the press on

behaU

who was not conHe says that i>i

o{ Josef,

versant in English: this

country at

last

free atmosphere.

he will find a

He says

and that

that

no longer possible

in Germany. There a professor

must

no regard Bauhaus but

and

at the

related to the use

same time

of the

textile.'""

Speaking of the Alberses' Black Mountain, I^arbara

arrival at

(Bobbie) Dreier, wife of led

New

Sim reported:

York

and vivacious, Frau

like a

like the leader of a

movement,

and speaks English slowly and solemnly

much

recalls that Josef

dinner with

student

create patterns close to the

materials

ofgovernment."

"Tall, slim

poem

are not hostile to industry

forwarding the

Albers looks

than

for the fitness of that

The

their

designs off the paper, nicln't with

ideal

thinks

German

somewhat

'Most commercial houses take

teach only the art that the govern-

ment

she exclaimed, looking

design for a given place.

art must have freedom in which to

grow,

pretty!',

"had

I^reier,

hanksgiving

my husband s

parents

Brooklyn Heights the night

before.

hey put him on the train

with his nice wife and

they

as a child recites a

'by heart.'

Today she

207 and 208. Anni Albers lilack

woven

are

165

Mountain College,

in the cornficlcls, ca. 1937.

Âť

209.

Anni Albers with Ted and Bobbie

Dreier en route to Florida and Cuba, 1935.

\,r>

came.

We settled

them

and they

adjusted to the completely different

that they

life

found there

in this

we were not knowing .

a big festival at the

had only fifty

was

there

be thankfitl for

was

and

really

a day

ive celebrated it."

and Josef was

life,

was

interesting to see

sor

166

and

fibers.

They

reflected

Anni

Albers's

modest

appearance and blend into the

Alberses rapidly

part of the Black

became

Mountain College

community. "Black Mountain

"Drawing upon

wunderbar" Albers wrote

the early

of 'playful pro-

felt

rather than purely

primarily black, white, and natural

The

a profes-

Bauhaus model, Albers promoted ductivity' She

they

background.'""*

was a professor.'"

method

States,

for their limited range of colors,

and interesting to see a professor hammer in his hand. This

teaching

on the thread

objects that should be

a new

with a

didn't exist in Europe. There

throughout the United

aesthetic that 'textiles are serving

appointed Professor of Art. It

the Art

Institute of Chicago, the Black

coloristic or textural effects

Albers was appointed Assistant Professor of Art,

Academy of Art, and

Cranbrook

were recognized for their emphasis

great event that was Thanksgiving.

Arid we thought

distinctive textiles. Exhibited

college, ivhich

or sixty students,

Mountain program produced

very

And so we got there and

after three or four days

that serves functional or

the Institute of Design,

Chancellery in Germany burned and everything was in ruins and

much.

work

were similar weaving programs

I think, ip33. Just when the

then

aesthetic ends."'" "Although there

November 24

arrived on

unencumbered

experimentation with materials

great big Robert E. Lee Hall.""

progress from

that srudents

a letter

dated December

1933,

carbon copies oi which were received by several of their friends in

Barely a year

Cuba. Bobbie Dreier

to put

all

for

whv

a sort

way

a boat.

of a

Key West

And

went.

"When

they

can take

the car over and everything.'

And

in 1934

the Alberses drove through Florida

with their

new good

friends

altitude

though

occurred to

Anni, that the two couples might venture toward the source of

[Pre-Columbian]

art

and

Mexico the following

travel to

year.""

summer of 1935 the made the first of fourteen

In the

Alberses visits to

we arrived

it is so

climate.

far south

cool,

And a

it is

truly refreshing

country for

art, like

wonderfd ancient

other,

barely yet discovered

new

meters, so even

of 2,^00

marvelously

art, frescoes:

Rivera, Orosco

you

[sic],

art,

much know

a>ul

surely

and others,

then

Merida, the talented abstract painter, Crespo

—

art

the most important

thing in this country. Imagine that.

Theodore and Barbara Dreier en route to Havatia,

in Mexico.

mountains. Mexico City [to

you come,

don't

goodness sake?

mer here

convertible.

here in our car after traveling for

had

the

them on

said, 'Well,

wotulerful sion-

seven days, at times through high

them down

We have had a

recalls,

Christmas vacation [and then] we took them

Dreiers

in the

had invited

Cuba, and we

offered to drive Florida].

and Bobbie

December

later, in

was invited to lecture

"Clarita Porcet

them

210 and

Albers, 1955.

secondhand Model

Germany.'

1934, Josef

Oaxaca and Acapulco with Ted

hey became collectors of

I're-C'olumbian

art:

During our nmny jourteen in

duration

all,

trips to

Mexico

—

some of three months'

and dating back

as far

— we had gathered

as 19^6 [sic]

and

there material covering

here

some

Mexico, traveling to

167

ill. Boliliic I^rcicr

.md Anni

212.

Anni Albers and her

father, Siegfried

Fleischmann, Mexico, 1937, photographed

of the

diverse early cultures

by Josef Albers.

pieces

came

to us

prehistoric sites offering

them

on our

fom

to us

visits to

boys

little

were also held up for

and goats

sale.

the fragments

As we

ofpottery,

which included subtly formed heads and,

alas, usually

we could not our hands

1937-38 In 1937 the Alberses put

broken figurines,

believe that here in

On March Walter and

We showed our late

little

Ise

17 ot that year

New

Albers went to

York and met

Gropius

as they

arrived in the United States. (Walter

Gropius was taking up an appoint-

ment

at the

of Design

Graduate School

Harvard University,

Cambridge, Massachusetts.)

ivere century-old

when plowing

Black Mountain College.

art at

Pre-Columbian pieces found by the peasants

their fields.

treasures to the

George Valliant, the authority

Albers's parents arrived in

Veracruz, Mexico, on June

their third

Mexican

trip)

excavating at the time on the outskirts

Toni Fleischmann wrote

City,

and he confirmed

their authenticity. Yes, here

a country whose earth such

art.'''

still

was yielded

18,

meeting the Alberses (who were

on Mexican archaeology, who was

ofMexico

Mayan

together an exhibition of

through the car

ivindow, just as turkeys

examined

of this

Our first small

ancient country.

Mexico City the following

diary,

"Now

day.

in her

eagerly looking

forward to Anke [Anni] and Jup [Josef].

Tomorrow

at last

will

see each other again after almost

month Ann is

four years!"" For the next the Alberses introduced

parents to the major sites in

Mexico: "June

23.

Tenayuca Pyramid.

drive to the .

Juppi and

Pap again buy small heads of gods,

which

168

are

still

being discovered,

and rhey cost only

few cents.""

return to Berlin via Albers's

will see

[Toni's

York,

mother wrote: "Farewells

Who

quite difficult.

New

knows when

each other again. Juppis

nickname

for

Anni and

213. Aiini Albc-rs .uui lu-r p.nx'nis,

1939 Albers became a United States

After the Fleischmanns departed to

citizen

on May

Josef did likewise In

June they traveled

College

set

showed

us.""'

Josef wrote to Bayer,

Bayer assemble material for

there, unless a

the exhibition Bauhaus 1919-1928

intervenes."''

Museum

New York.

were included

of Modern Art

Albers's

weavings

in the exhibition,

about our

and

two years

article,

"Work with

was published

Mountain College, in

November.'"

Material,"

in the leaflet

"Black

Bulletin 5"

meet

moving

European explosion

Toni Fleischmann I

wrote a diary

first trip to

Mexico 1

would

country again. Now,

"The Weaving Workshop"

the

are

plan to 3

never imaiiined that

see that

to the

who

reported, "In 1937

and she contributed the essay exhibition catalogue.' Another

"We

go to Mexico about June Anni's parents,

Germany,

out for Mexico once more.

helped the Gropiuses and Herbert

at the

Mexico

Tlalpan. Albers's

about everything, and marvelous

The following year Albers

12.

again for Josef to teach at Gobers

parents, forced to Hee

the things the)'

b\' loset

on December

Josef] were touching, so concerned

all

Teotihu.ican, Mexico, 1937, photograjihcd

and

17, 1939,

later to the day,

begin

same journey on the same

boat, the 'Orinoco,

but under

totally different circumstances.

At that time

was

children again

native land,

a trip to see

our

and through them

to see a distant

Today

and

Siegfried .wid loni Hleischm,)nn,

lovely country.

departure from our

which we must

leave

forever."" Albers wrote of the

169

Albers.

214 and

215.

Anni Albers

at the

loom and

with a student, Black Mountain College, ca. 1937.

trip to

Our

Mexico

was fine.

trip

meet her parents: .

1940-49

We have

In the 1940s Albers began to

pyramid, one market, one fresco,

make small-scale weavings, which she mounted on linen bases and

and last

framed.

seen all ready [sic] quite

lot;

one

had our first party; and Americans

night

with painters

/ developed there [at Black

and all of it a little crazy. Rivera who was supposed to come was not there, naturally. We expect

Mountain

my family sometime

Bauhaus was meant

and plan Cruz

to drive

[sic] to

meet

next iveek

down

to Vera

them!''

College] gradually these

what I call Which was

"pictorial weavings. really

not what the to do.

Gropius never quite forgave

I went into the art

side.

the one thing that gradually

me a

little

It ivas [a>i]

materials

more known.

that

It tvas

made

inventive use of new

and constructions that had many centuries.

not been used in

[Josef] wasn't terribly interested in

But he thought that

textiles.

was nice that I did something.^'

Her weavings were exhibited widely in the 1940s, and she

was

demand

lecturer,

and

as a teacher, a

a writer

during

time." In an article that tic

this

drew caus-

responses from traditional

handweavers, Albers stated that

handweaving should he seen

170

more than

romantic attempt

perdu

to recall a 'temps

conceived as a preparatory step

machine production the work will

be more than the revival of a

lost

and will take responsible part a new development^

skill

In the spring ok 1941 the

Many

Massachusetts.

were

sold.

One

of the pieces

reviewer exclaimed:

"Modern times have produced a number of new and sometimes strange things. But

now

'til

we'd

never heard of utilizing electricians' supplies,

bathroom

fixtures,

plumbers" accessories, and

hard-

Aiberses went to Harvard, where

ware merchants stock to make

Josef taught at the Ciraduate

jewelry!

"Maybe

School of Design.

On May

of that year an

its

another of those

things brought

what we have.

had made with

proving 'smart.' ...

a student, Alex

conserving

b\'

And

exhibition of jewelry that Albers

it's

comes from

Reed, from curtain rings, hairpins,

the hands of Anni Albers, exponent

paper

of Art

clips, bottle caps, glass

in the

Black Mountain

drawer knobs, clay insulators, metal

School

washers, and other household items,

a fertile imagination

opened

main

New

the Willard Ciallery in

Kuh

Gallery,

of North Carolina

requisite for

"One

York. The exhibition traveled

to the Katherine

[sic]

pieces

of the

was

seems to be the

its

creation.

most interesting

a plaque

formed by

Chicago; the Addison Gallery of

using a perforated sink strainer at

American

the

Art, Andover,

end

of a

Massachusetts; the Fitchburg Art

and hanging

Center, Fitchburg, Massachusetts;

clips

and the College,

Museum

ot Art,

Northampton,

a fringe

of paper

from the lower edge of

The

Smith

shower curtain chain

it!""

jewelry was included

Modern Handmade Jewelry, an

exhibition organized by the

171

216

and

217.

Anni Albers,

ca. 1937,

photographed by Josef Albers.

2i8. Installation

Anni Albers

The Museum of Modern

New

Museum

view of

Textiles,

of Modern Art

Art,

fifteen other

museums

New

York and shown there and

Germany

in 1942. After the war,

however, they returned to Mexico,

across the

taking an extended sabbatical

York, 1949.

country beginning in 1946. Albers

wrote to the exhibitions organizer, Jane Sabersky, from

New

Mexico:

Of course you can keep our necklaces for further exhibitions. Glad

We found the perfect place to rent and quick, with marvelous food too. We will stay here until spring and then continue learn

into

it is

success.

from October 1946 to November 1947 and traveling there via Canada, the Midwest, California, Texas,

Philip

Johnson

She recuperated

in the pictorial

who

for the Rockefeller

position

the unusual combination of cotton chenille with white plastic

copper a

foil to

and

create a curtain with

calm appearance during the day

that transformed into a sparkling

Alberses traveled

less

between 1940 and 1945, possibly because they could no longer go to

Mexico

172

after

allied itself

with

and

falter,

Josef,

October 1948, resigned from that

on March

14, 1949.

At the

end of the semester the Alberses

left

Black Mountain College for the

last

time and traveled to Mexico City,

where Josef taught

at the University

of Mexico. In August they moved to

New

York.

Edgar Kaufmann,

surface at night.

The

weaving La Luz

reluctantly agreed to be rector

on East Fifty-second York. Albers chose

New

La Luz,

Utopia of Black Mountain

College began to

from Albers

New

Mexico, and celebrated her recovery

guest house Street in

Mexico. In El Paso,

weeks and underwent surgery.

The

commissioned drapery material

New

Albers was hospitalized for several

Old Mexico.''"

Around 1944

and

Jr.,

director

of the Department of Industrial

Design

at the

Museum

Modern

Art

New

York, had

come

Black Mountain College lecture

you

1948 to

Summer And he saw some of my And he said, "Wouldn't

on design

Institute. things.

textures, small expermiental textile

at the

Art?"

And

turned out the museum was ready

do that

textile

and I was the only had ever shown.'

person they

Albers met with Philip

Johnson

museum

the

"As far as

recalls,

interest in textiles

[Albers].

H. of

And

all

of the

the

arts.

out

textiles.'

said,

Anni

that

October

30, 1949,

presentation of the

showed mainly

me.

And that

rials that usually

was using mate-

were not used for

I used synthetics

textiles.

And also

and plastic had the

of making materials that are

usually not existent, that

ones.

""'

made

is,

partitions

six or eight differ-

Albers's invoK'ement,

Johnson remembers: wasn't a person to

Textiles,

was the

also things

ent transparencies.'"

plugged the

Alhers

way

exhibition.

in rooms, rather transparent

total picture of

[It]

idea

which was held from September to

'You cannot leave

... So

exhibition,

that were at one time ofgreat inter-

her

idea of doing a textile show."

The

materials.

in the

/ was very happy with the

had an

Museum

Art] seriously

he wanted ... a I

was

1949.

took Alfred [Alfred

Barr, director

Modern

14,

museums

[Johnson] took on

est to

to discuss

on January

the exhibition

the exhibition trav-

United States and Canada.

show your things at the

like to

Museum ofModern

samples, yard materials, pictorial

From 1950-53

And shed

"I felt

she

a lot of

always need help

that regard.

Hrst

work of a sinshown at

gle textile artist to be

the

museum.

Anni

Albers, 1935,

photographed by Josef Albers.

weavings, and hanging screens.

eled to twent)'-six

219.

included studies of

173

220 and

221.

Anni Albcrs

her loom,

observed in 1995:

1950-59

1943-

"It

was ironic

chairman of the Department of

way that Harvard was giving more recognition as a creative

Design of Yale University and the

artist

In 1950 Josef was appointed

moved

Alberses

New

Haven,

Connecticut. At their home, at 8

North Forest

Responding

from Gropius

first

think he could have been."

Albers continued her experi-

ments with

time.

textiles for

production,

and worked with the manufacturer

commission

for his

candor,

don't think Josef was entirely

And

Circle, Albers

to a

all

sympathetic to her concerns.

played the role of housewife as well as artist for the

than Yale. ... In

her

Harvard Law

Knoll on the realization of her

The

School building, she created

designs as yard materials.

bedspreads and partitions for the

majority of her pictorial weavings (twenty-four of the thirty-six

dormitories.

One of the

was a

in quite a great quantity. It

and white one, with jute. Gropius had the idea that it

black

decade, and she taught at art

this .

schools across the United States. / was often asked

should be very masculine.

had

known works) were made during

materials was done

be heavy

and have

here,

Yale, to

They

give a few seminars to the architec-

this

tural students.

And what intrigued

strong structure so that you didn't see

immediately, "Oh, he didn't ivipe his

think something should be reversed

feet,

and here

Frank from I

like to be

cigarette hole from

last year still."

on the practical side."'

Charles Sawyer,

Dean

of the

Yale School of Art at the time.

174

in regard to teaching

in teaching. ture,

was that I

always, in architec-

or ivhatever you do,

you

start

and

try to

from what

there

explain

While I was trying

it.

today

to set

m ." i

ikjM-

task,

put the students on absolute Nothing

zero, in the desert, in Peru. is there.

have

What

the first thing you

think of? And build up?

And maybe, for instance,

of the students

it like this,

the brick,

like this,

you know?"

During the

her Hrst svna"c)gue

com-

"The article

textiles for industr)',

in Perspecta, a journal

Architecture, in 1957.' 0>i Designing, a compilation of Albers's writings,

1950s, the AJberses

Press in

was published by Pellango

New Haven

in 1959.

Also in 1959 the exhibition

returned several times to Latin

America, traveling to Mexico and

Anni Albers,

Cuba

presented by the Massachusetts

in 1952

and

to Peru

Chile in 1953 and 1956.

and

In 1954

they traveled to Hawaii, where

Institute

Pictorial Weavings

was

of Technolog)', Cambridge,

Massachusetts, before

traveled

Josef taught at the University of

to the

Honolulu and Albers had an exhi-

Technology, Pittsburgh; Baltimore

Museum

bition of her weavings at the Ht)n()lulu

Also

Academy

in 1954 Albers

Josef to

Art

ol Arts.

accompanied

Ulm, Germany, where he

gave a course

Hochschule

design at the

Carnegie Institute of

of Art; Yale University

Ciallery,

New

Haven,

Connecticut; and Contemporary Arts

Museum, Houston.

new

Kir Gestaltung.

175

at 8

North Forest

Haven, Connccticiu.

Mexico,

by Albers based on her work

appeared

New

and Anni Albers

workroom

223. Joset

Pliable Plane: Textiles

published by the Yale School of

and we build but how we arrive at

done

Temple Emanu-El

mission, were installed.

designing

also the idea of not being told

brick

in Dallas,

Anni's

in Architecture," a lengthy

You gradually develop something,

inventions, as you go along.

And some

panels for

something

far fishing, or something for the roof.

222. Josef

In January 1957 Albers's ark

and Anni Albers, Monte

1952.

Circle,

ca. 1955.

Alb.in,

224- Josef Circle,

and Anni Albers

New

at 8

North Forest

1960-69

Haven, Connecticut, 1968,

photographed by Henri Cartier-Bresson.

In 1961 Albers received a second

was hanging around,

useless wife,

head of the work-

until June Wayne,

synagogue commission, for ark

shop, asked

panels for Congregation B'nai

myself I found that in

Israel,

Woonsocket, Rhode

A to

Island.

commission for a work that

the image

a most gratifying one.

though any ivork we do to relate ourselves to

For,

an attempt

a source ofspecial satisfaction

it is

my first print,

suspected."'

"Now, there

nothing of the technique.

They supplied the technicians!' Albers was invited back to

Tamarind

toward something we hold

produced Line Involvements,

as a fellow in

That same year the American of Architects recognized

the significance of Albers's

work

AIAs Craftsmanship

her with the

Medal.

made with a craft; when is

considered

Although she would continue

threads,

art.

was asked

work

Tamarind Littwgraphic

Workshop in Los Angeles where

176

of work. As a

comes more

result,

easily

lotiged-for pat I,

The multiplication and exactness of ofprintmaking allow

for broader exhibition

it's

Prints gave

almost by chance, to printmaking.

when

considered

a greater freedom ofpresentation.

the process

My great breakaivay came

it's

on paper,

it's

work at her loom for a few more years, in 1963 Albers turned, to

at the

Once having discovered this new freedom, I was never able to let go. I find that, when the work .

within their profession and honored

my husband

1964 and

portfolio of seven lithographs.

reverence!"

Institute

some"

able to participate in a task directed in

made

thing open, interesting to follow.

medium

I began to think, after I

And I knew

something

meaningful in a general sense,

this

of threads could project

a freedom I never

be part of a building devoted to

ivorship

to try lithography

and oiunership

recognition

and happily,

on the

the

shoulder.''^

Albers had been commissioned to write an entry

weaving

for a

on hand-

new

In 1970,

edition of the

Encyclopedia BritdHnicn pubHshcd in 1963, first

and

this

"textile

fundamentals

and methods" published by Wesleyan University Press

Prayers, a

orative tapestry

the Jewish

in 1965.

commem-

New

produce a scriptural

which would bring texts.

for

York.

medi-

effect

mind sacred

These paneb are

on rigid backgrounds effect

uses his

of commemorative

New

/ could not stand the idea aiiytnore

long

the yarns

mounted

produce the

and looms.

took too

and it always produced just one .

way. It

all the

I just outgrew

some

annoyed me and I can't do

anymore.

And then

boms and all the

/ used the threads themselves as

a sculptor or painter

808 Birchwood Drive in

altogether in favor of printmaking.

piece.

commissioned

Museum

New

the Alberses

Orange, about ten miles from

ofall

The following year she

completed Six

moved

when

Haven, Albers gave up weaving

became the

chapter of 0>i Weaving, her

treatise

225. Josef Albers at 8

1970-94

away

I gave yarns.

exhibition of Albers's

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; her major show Europe â&#x20AC;&#x201D; was shown

work

first

at the

Kunstmuseum at

in l^iisseldorf

and

the Bauhaus-Archiv, Berlin,

in 1975.

She continued her experi-

stelae.

ments

printmaking, working

with Ken lyler

from Tamarind) G.E.L. at

(whom at

she

knew

Gemini

Los Angeles and

Tyler Graphics in

later

New York,

and extending her techniques into screenprinting

During

and etching.

these years, until 1994,

she was honored with degrees and

177

North Forest

C'ircic,

Haven, Connecticur, 1968,

photographed by Henri Cartier-Brcsson.

226. Maximillian Schell

and Anni Albers,

Yale University Art Gallery,

New

awards from numerous institutions, including honorary doctorates in

Haven, Connecticut, 1978. fine arts

227.

Anni Albers and her

Hans Farman, and on

sister,

brotlier,

Lotte BenFey,

Albers's eighty-fifth birthday,

Bethany, Connecticut, 1984.

from the Maryland

histitute College

in 1976;

of Hartford

and the University

in 1979;

and an

March

1976, just after

New

Haven, Connecticut,

and Albers began

Gold Medal in New York. She responded: As to name calling, '

experimenter. In 1982, at a meeting of the

in 1973.

his eighty-eighth birthday, Josef

died in

with the American Craft Council

instead of visionary, I suggest

honorary doctorate of law from York University, Toronto,

to Albers as

a "visionary" as he presented her

of Art, Baltimore,

in 1972; the Philadelphia College

of Art

In 1981, the textile artist Jack

Lenor Larsen referred

assume

College Art Association in

New

York, she participated with Louise

Nevelson, John Cage, and others

panel entitled

five

"The

considerable responsibility as the

Art/Craft Connection: Material as

primary guardian of

his legacy.

In 1977 the Brooklyn

Museum

presented Anni Albers: Prints and Drawings, a comprehensive exhibition of her works on paper.

Albers designed a range of fabrics for Sunar, a textile in the 1980s, that

remained

has

production ever since.

Despite her disavowal of femi-

Women's C^aucus

lor Art

presented Albers with an award for

outstanding achievement

178

How rial,

do we choose our

in 1980.

specific

mate-

our means of communication?

"Accidentally. to us,

Something speaks

a sound, touch, hardness or

and asks us to We are finding our language, and as we go along we learn to obey their rules and their

softness, it catches us

company,

nism, the

Metaphor." During the panel,

she stated:

be formed.

limits.

Students worry about

choosing their way. I always

tell

drawings, and prims, together with a selection ol Josef's work,

exhibited in Josefand Anni Albers,

anywhere.

organized by Albers's close

Albers continued to travel,

Maxiniillian Schell, at the

visiting Fairope several rimes

Stuck

during these

at the

years. In 1983 she

presided over the opening oi the Josef Albers

Germany,

Museum

Bottrop,

Josef's birthplace.

Connections, a portfolio of

nine screenprints,

some based on

Bauhaus, was published

by Fausta Squatriti Edirore

Milan in 1984.

retrospective exhibition,

The Woven and Graphic Art of Anni Albers, was presented at the Renwick Gallery of the National

Museum

American

Art, Smithsonian Institution,

Washington, D.C.,

in 1985

In 1990 Albers traveled to

and

to accept an

honorary

doctorate from the Royal College

of Art. Also

1990 she received

an honorary doctorate from the Island School ot Design,

Providence. Albers's in the

work was again seen of Modern Art in

Museum

1990, this time alongside works

by one of her former Bauhaus colleagues, in the exhibition Stolzl.

Anni

Gunta

Albers.

Anni Albers died

Orange,

Mav

1994.

Connecticut, on

traveled to the Yale Universit)'

Art Ciallery,

New

Haven, Con-

necticut, in 1986. In

December

229.

Anni AUkts

1984.

1989, a selection

of her textiles, pictorial weavings,

179

,11

ilic

Roy.il (!ollcgc

of Art graduation ceremony to accept

an honorary doctorate,

London, lune

Munich and subsequently Josel Albers Museum.

Rhode

her earlier designs from the

frienci \'illa

London

Anni AlbcTs, Mil.m,

was

them, "You can go anywhere from '

liS.

29, 1990.

Notes

Nicholas Fox Weber, "Anni Albers to

and Graphic Art of

Date," in The Woven

Anni Albers

(exh. cat.;

Washington, D.C.:

Smithsonian Institution 2.

Press, 1985), p. 15.

Conversation with Hans and Betty

Farman, Bethany, Conn., June 3.

The

in the late

and Anni

Josef

Albers Foundation archives, Bethany,

Conn.

Maximillian Schell, interview with Anni

The

transcript in

Josef and Anni Albers

Foundation archives.

Nicholas Fox Weber, "Anni Albers to

with Anni Albers,

Fesci, interview

Haven, Conn., July

1968, Archives

New York;

The Josef and Anni

transcript

Albers Foundation

archives.

Walter Gropius, Programm des

Staatlichen Bauhauses in

Weimar (Weimar,

April 1919), p. 4.

Feb. 23, 1920,

letter to

Weimar

quoted

259, 48;

Annie Weil,

State Archives no.

Anja Baumhofif, "Gender,

Art and Handicraft

Bauhaus," Ph.D.

at the

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore,

diss.,

Schell, interview with Albers,

Dec.

16,

1989.

Wortmann

Weltge, interview

with Anni Albers, Orange, Conn., Feb.

1987; transcript in

21,

Anni Albers Foundation

Artist as Lawgiver," Arts

21,

1987.

Fesci, interview

with Albers,

1968.

24.

Schell, interview

with Albers,

16, 1989.

Reminiscences by Lotte Benfey,

25.

with Albers,

26.

Fesci, interview

July

27.

Weltge, interview with Albers,

Feb.

1968.

21,

1987.

28.

Weber, "Anni Albers to Date,"

29.

Schell, interview with Albers,

Dec.

Weber and Pandora

Tabatabai Asbaghi, interview with Philip

Johnson,

New

Canaan, Conn.,

July 26, 1998. 31.

Josef Albers, letter to Vasily Kandinsky,

Dec.

12, 1933, in

Kandinsky-Albers:

(Paris:

des annees trente

Centre Pompidou, 1998),

Teach," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Nov. 26, 1933, p. 8A.

The Josef and

33.

"One of Germany's Foremost Textile Comes Here to Teach in

Designers

archives.

Ibid.

Southern Mountain School,"

Annelise Fleischmann,

Sun, Dec. 4, 1933, p. 34.

special

Bauhaus supple-

Neue Frauenkleidung und

appeared

article,

in a special

"Bauhausweberei,"

Bauhaus number of

the journal /;/ÂŤ^f Menschen 8 (Nov. 1924), p. 188.

Albers:

Gemeinsames Leben, gemeinsame

Arbeit," in Josef Helfenstein

and Henriette

MemWi, Josef und Anni Albers,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Amerika, Kiinstlerpaare (exh. cat.; Bern:

1998), p.

Etiropa

und

Kiinstlerfreunde

Kunstmuseum

Bern,

31.

Anni Albers, "Design: Anonymous and

16.

Timeless" (1947), in

Schell, interview

Dec.

with Albers,

16, 1989.

Richard Polsky, interview with Anni

Albers, Orange, Conn., Jan.

11,

Research Office, Columbia University,

New

York; transcript in

Anni Albers Foundation

The

Josef and

archives, p. 35.

Mary Jane Jacob, "Anni Albers: A Modern Weaver as Artist," in The Woven and Graphic Art ofAnni Albers

37.

(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian

Designing

Institution Press, 1985), p. 67.

Tapis et Tissus, Art

International dAujotird'hui 17

and

18.

(1926), plates

Albers,

"Weaving

at the

(Sept. 1938, revised July 1959), in

180

Bauhaus"

Mary

Mountain

MIT 39.

19.

Anni

1985,

"American Craftspeople Project," Oral

38.

{i<)z6).

Albers

Foundation archives. 35.

Press, 1971), p. 2.

Ofjietj

1996;

14,

The Josef and Anni

(Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan Universit)'

17.

York

Frederick A. Horowitz, interview with

transcript in

36.

Nicholas Fox Weber, "Anni und Josef

15.

34.

New

Barbara (Bobbie) Dreier, June

Frauenkultur (Karlsruhe, 1924). Albers 's

second published

p. 17.

"Art Professor, Fleeing Nazis, Here to

14.

"Wohnokonomie,"

p. 20.

16, 1989.

Nicholas Fox

13.

ment

(1957),

^x (Sept. 1977), pp. 122-27.

July

32.

Sigrid

12.

The

Une Correspondence

1994, p. 82. 11.

Feb.

30.

Walter Gropius,

10.

Designing, p. 19.

late 1970s.

p. 16.

of American Art,

Weltge, interview with Albers,

22.

Dec.

Ibid.

Bauhaus:

23.

Savim

Pliable Plane:

Marcel Franciscono, "Paul KJee in the

21.

Magazine

Albers, Orange, Conn., Dec. 16, 1989;

"The

Albers,

pp. 36-41; reprinted in

1970s; transcript in

New

Anni

20.

Reminiscences by Lotte Benfey, recorded

Date,"

Textiles

1993). PP- 98-99-

Textiles in Architecture," Perspecta

1998.

Ibid.

by her grandson Phihp Benfey

p. 2.

Wortmann Weltge, Bauhaus (London: Thames and Hudson,

Sigrid

19.

Emma

Harris, The Arts at Black

College (Cambridge, Mass.:

Press, 1987), p. 24.

Copies of

this letter are in

and Anni Albers Foundation

The

Josef

archives.

Nicholas Fox Webcr, telephone con-

40.

versation with Bobbie Dreier, July 29. 1998.

Nicholas Fox Weber, preface, in Karl

41.

54.

Anni

"Handweaving loday

Albers,

Work

Textile

BLick Mountain C'ollege,"

The Weaverb. no.

(Jan. -Feb. 1941).

Taube, The Josef and Anui Albers Collection

pp. 1-4. In response to this article,

of Pre-Columbian Art (New York: Hudson

Hills Press, 1988), p. 9-

home-weaving course,

Anni

42.

Albers, letter to Vasily

Kandinsky, Aug.

Kaiulimky-

22, 1936, in

Une Correspondance

Alhers:

and Nina

des annees

Anni Albers, Pre-Columbian Mexican

43.

(New

Pretty

translated by Fleischmann's grandson

57.

and Anni

Josef

Anni Albers,

New

58.

and Albers,

46.

Ibid., July 16, 1937.

Department

47.

Anni

"The Weaving Workshop," Gropius, and

Ise

Herbert Bayer, Bauhaus 1919-1928 (exh.

New

cat.;

Museum

York:

of Modern Art,

p. 29.

Reprinted

48.

the

Designing, pp. 38-40.

Colkge Art Journal

no. 2 (Jan. 1944), pp. $1-54;

and

61.

Weber and Asbaghi,

Polsky, interview with Albers, Jan.

62.

"The Reminiscences

49. Josef Albers, letter to Herbert Bayer,

pp. 31-32.

May

63.

Ibid., pp. 17-18.

64.

"The

Black Mountain College

North Carolina

State Archives,

Toni Ullstein Fleischmann, "Thrown

Off the Track"

(1939),

unpublished account

of the Fleischmanns emigration from

Germany

to the

United

transcript, translated

Anni

The

Josef and

C'ollege

16, 1989.

"Designing," Craft Horizons

(May

1943), pp. 7-9;

Design 46, no. 4 (Dec.

New York:

p. 7.

Polsky, interview with Albers, Jan.

68.

Ibid.

69.

Preface,

Wearing (Middletown, Press, 1965),

"We Need 12,

Statement by Anni Albers

70.

release issued

Museum, New

the

1944), pp. 21-22

"One Aspect of Art Work,"

Designing, pp. 30-33); "Constructing

York; copy in

and Anni Albers Foundation 71.

The

Josef

archives.

Schell, interview with Albers,

Dec. 72.

by the Jewish

16, 1989.

Anni Albers,

letter to

Jack Lenor

Textiles," Design 47, no. 8 (April 4, 1946)

Larsen, July 23, 1981; The Josef and

(reprinted in Alvin Lustig, cd., Visual

Albers Foundation archives.

Communication [New York,

1945],

and

Designing, pp. 12-16); "Design:

Anonymous and ofArt ^o. no. "Fabrics," Art 1948), p. 33;

73.

Transcript in

The

Anni

Josef and Anni

Albers Foundation archives.

Timeless," The Magazine

2 (Feb. 1947),

(reprinted in

11,

"The Reminiscences of Anni .Mbers,"

1985;

undated press

no. 2

Crafts for Their Contact with Materials,"

(reprinted as

(exh. cat.;

Brooklyn Museum, 1977),

p. 15.

Albers's publications in the 1940s were:

53.

Baro, interview with Anni

Anni Albers

Conn.: Wesleyan University

Schell, interview with Albers,

Dec.

Gene

p. 21.

State Archives,

Raleigh. 52.

Anni Albers, unpublished typewritten

67.

Anne Mangold,

Mountain

North Carolina

65.

Albers, in

archives.

Albers, letter to

1939; Black

15,

Papers,

Pliable Plane: Textiles in

statement, June 1962; The Josef and Anni

66.

by Fleischmann's

Anni Albers Foundation

June

11,

Anni Albers,"

Albers Foundation archives.

States; English

grandson Theodor Bcnfcy,

51.

Architecture," Perspecta 4 (1957), pp. 36-41.

Raleigh. 50.

interview with

Johnson, July 26, 1998.

1985;

Papers,

11,

The Reminiscences of Anni Albers,"

Designing, pp. 50-53.

12, 1939;

files.

and Design,

of Architecture

Polsky, interview with Albers, Jan.

60.

"Weaving

Jan. 14, 1949, exhibition

Johnson, July 26, 1998.

1985;

Bauhaus,"

11,

The Museum of Modern Art, New York. 59. Weber and Asbaghi, interview with

1938, 1952), pp. 141-42; revised in July 1959

and reprinted

The

Report of meeting between Johnson

Ibid.

Albers,

Jane Sabersky,

Mexico, Jan. 20, 1947;

Polsky, interviesv with Albers, Jan.

45.

Walter Gropius,

18, 1941.

letter to

1985, p. 28.

Albers Foundation archives.

p. 13.

Josef and Anni Albers Foundation archives.

English transcript,

The

Art?" The Wearer 6,

Dorothy Randall, "Hardware, Plumbing

La Luz,

Is It

55.

44. Toni Ullstein Fleischmann, travel

Theodor Bentcy,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; But

(July-Aug. 1941),

Sun-Telegraph. Nov.

York: Praeger, 1970),

17, 1937;

flincy

no.

56.

June

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

industry would consider this a big joke!"

unpaginated.

diary,

"The

scoffed:

for industry

Gadgets Make Jewelry," The Pittsburgh

Miniatures: The Josef and Anni Albers Collection

making of models

"It's

trente, p. 77.

Mary

Arwater, the originator of a popular

pp. 51-53

Designing, pp. 1-9);

and Architecture

(March

and "Weavings," Art and

Architecture (>6 (Feb. 1949). p. 14.

181

The Solomon

Guggenheim

Trustees

Foundation

Giovanni Agnelli Jon Imanol Azua

Honorary

Trustees in Perpetuity

Solomon

Justin K.

Thannhauser

M. Brant Mary Sharp Cronson Elizabeth T. Dingman Peter

Guggenheim

Peggy Guggenheim

May

Gail

Engelberg

Daniel Filipacchi

Honorary Chairman

Barbara Jonas

David H. Koch

Peter Lawson-Johnston

Thomas Krens Chairman

Barbara Lane

Peter B. Lewis

Peter Lawson-Johnston

Samuel Ronald O. Pereiman

Peter Littmann

Wendy

L-J.

McNeil

Edward H. Meyer

Vice-Presidents

Wendy

L-J.

John

Wadsworth,

LeFrak

Peter B. Lewis

President

McNeil

Ronald O. Pereiman Frederick

Jr.

W. Reid

Richard A. Rifkind Vice-President

and

Denise Saul

Treasurer

Stephen C. Swid

Terry Semel

James

Sherwood

W Sidawi

Director

Raja

Thomas Krens

Seymour

Slive

Stephen C. Swid

John

Secretary

Edward

Wadsworth,

Michael

Wettach

Honorary Trustee

John Wilmerding

Claude Pompidou

William

Trustees

Jr.

Cornel West

Rover

T. Ylvisaker

Officio

Dakis Joannou Luigi Moscheri

Director Emeritus

Thomas M. Messer

Photo

credits (by figure

number):

21-23, 29. 39' 41-46, 49. 50,

64-67, 132-47, 153-57.

Nighswander;

Munich;

7, 38:

Department

53. 54-

56-58,

161, 174. 175:

Tim

Die Neue Sammlung,

Michael Nedzweski,

Museum

of Library Services,

of Natural History,

52, 68, 69,

73-82, 84,

85,

American

New

95-106,

126, 128-32, 158:

Museum

New York;

of Art,

59:

Lee

©The Jewish

Stalsworth; 60:

John

College, Harvard University, Cambridge,

Museum, New

York; 61-63: Ellen

Mass.;

8, 9,

11-20, 40, 70-72, 83, 86-94,

107-18, 120-23, I25' '-7' '59' '60, 180, 202:

Art,

New York;

Blackink Architectural Photography,

Dallas; 165, 223: Getulio Alviani; 171:

Katherine Newbegin; 172, 201:

David Mathews,

10:

Parnell,

Labenski; 150, 164, 168: John Hill; 162, 163:

York;

119, 124,

Wide World

Photos

College, Harvard University, Cambridge,

Research Library, Getty Research Institute,

Mass.; 24, 25,

GmbH, 27:

191:

Thomas

©ARS, New

York;

Lunt, Department ot Library

Services,

American

History,

New

Museum

of Natural

York; 28: R.E. Logan,

Haacke;

189, 198:

Bauhaus-Archiv

Berlin; 26, 30:

Inc.; 181: Faith

Metropolitan

Museum

of Art,

New

York.

Beaumont and Nancy Newhall

estate.

Courtesy of Scheinbaum and Russek Ltd.

Guggenheim Collection

I'^ggy

Family committee

^^ggy Guggenheim Collection Advisory Board

Christian Haberniann

M. W. Harrison

Jacques Hachuel Gilbert

David Helion

President

Fabrice Helion'*'

Peter Lawson-Jtjhn.stun

W. Lawrence Heisey William M. Hollis, Jr.

Vice-President

Jacques E. Lennon

Evelyn Lambert

Nicolas Helion

Laurence and S.indro Riimncy

The

Clovis Vail Julia Vail

and

Karolc

B. Vail

Mark

Vail

BriiLC

Earl Castle Siewarl

Mnuland

Samuel H. Lindenbaum Jime Lowell

Hoiioniry C.hiiinnun

Cristiano Mantero

Claude

Achille

Maramotti

Valeria

Monti

Poiiijiidou

Honorary Vice-Chairman

H. R. H. The Grand Duchess of

Luxembourg

Luigi Moscheri

Raymond D. Nasher Christina

Newburgh

Giovanni Pandini Honorary Member

Annelise Ratii

Olga Adamishina

Benjamin

Rauch

Richard A. Rifkind

Members

Nanette Ross Miles Rubin

Luigi Agrati

Steven

Ames

Aldo Sacchi

Giuseppina Araldi CluiiKiti

Gheri Sacklcr

Maria Angeles AriMraiii

Sir

Rosa Ayer

Denise Saul

Marchese Annlbalc

Bcrlingieri

Alexander Bernstein Patti

Cadby

Birch

Timothy

Sainsbur;-

Evelina Schapira

Hannclore

Schulhof

James B. Shenvood

Mary Bloch

Riki Taylor

Wilfred Cass

Roberto Tronchetti Provera

The

Melissa Ulfane

Earl Castle Stewart

Claudio Cavazza

Leopoldo

Fausto Cereti

Jean Wagener

Sir Trevor

Chinn

Franca Coin

Dingman Ehrmann

Nancy

Villarcal

Pierce Watts

Ruth Westen Pavese

Elizabeth T.

Christine

Emeritus Members

Isabella del Frate Eich

Enrico Chiari

Rosemary Chisholni Feick

William Feick,

Mary Gaggia

Umberto Nordio

David Gallagher

Anna

Danielle Gardner

Kristen Venable

Patricia

Gerber

Marino

Golinelli

Jr.

Scotti

'•/I 1

;

I.J

•

.^>h;-

'•'•

^.n

'''6'X

•>it-c-

W'i" f,

.».'

•/<---"•. '

''j'^' *'f .*i

.^^h:--*/-'

^•''--V-ii'"

fHr

'•

•

^'-!'

llii r (

> Distributed by Harry N.

^^ ^^

Abrams

loo Fifth Avenue

New

Jacket design by

York,

New York loou

Nathan Garland

ISBN 0-8109-6923-8

90000

780810"969230