Josef & Anni
Life & Work
The Josef & Anni Albers Foundation
With selected lectures by Josef & Anni Albers Krannert Art Museum University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Josef & Anni Albers: Life & Work The Josef & Anni Albers Foundation
With selected lectures by Josef and Anni Albers Krannert Art Museum University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Josef Albers 1888-1976
Josef Albers Gitterbild (Grid Mounted), ca. 1921 glass, metal, and wire 123⁄4 × 113⁄8 in. (32.4 × 28.9 cm) 1976.6.21
Josef Albers Homage to the Square: Advancing Spring, 1952 oil on masonite 16 × 16 in. (40.6 × 40.6 cm) 1976.1.1309
Biographies Josef and Anni Albers, lifelong artistic adventurers, were among the leading pioneers of twentieth-century modernism. Josef Albers (1888–1976) was an influential teacher, writer, painter, and color theorist— now best known for the Homages to the Square he painted between 1950 and 1976 and for his innovative 1963 publication Interaction of Color. Anni Albers (1899– 1994) was a textile designer, weaver, writer, and printmaker who inspired a reconsideration of fabrics as an art form, both in their functional roles and as wallhangings. The couple met in Weimar, Germany in 1922 at the Bauhaus. This new teaching institution, which transformed modern design, had been founded three years earlier, and emphasized the connection between artists, architects, and craftspeople. Before enrolling as a student at the Bauhaus in 1920, Josef had been a school teacher in and near his hometown of Bottrop, in the northwestern industrial Ruhr region of Germany. Initially he taught a general elementary school course; then, following studies in Berlin, he gave art instruction. At the same time, he developed as a figurative artist and printmaker. Once he was at the 1
Josef & Annie: Life & Work
Bauhaus, he started to make glass assemblages from detritus he found at the Weimar town dump and from stained glass; he then made sandblasted glass constructions and designed large stained-glass windows for houses and buildings. He also designed furniture, household objects, and an alphabet. In 1925, he was the first Bauhaus student to be asked to join the faculty and become a master. At the end of the decade he made exceptional photographs and photo-collages, documenting Bauhaus life with flair. By 1933, when pressure from the Nazis forced the school to shut its doors, Josef Albers had become one of its best-known artists and teachers, and was among those who decided to close the school rather than comply with the Third Reich and reopen adhering to its rules and regulations. Annelise Elsa Frieda Fleischmann went to the Bauhaus as a young student in 1922. Throughout her childhood in Berlin, she had been fascinated by the visual world, and her parents had encouraged her to study drawing and painting. Having been brought up in an affluent household where she was expected simply to continue living the sort
of comfortable domestic life enjoyed by her mother, she rebelled by deciding to be an artist and going off to an art school that embraced modernism and where the living conditions were rugged and the challenges immense. She entered the weaving workshop because it was the only one open to her, but soon embraced the possibilities of textiles. She and Josef, eleven years apart in age, met shortly after her arrival in Weimar. They were married in Berlin in 1925—and Annelise Fleischmann became Anni Albers. At the Bauhaus, Anni experimented with new materials for weaving and became a bold abstract artist. She used straight lines and solid colors to make works on paper and wall hangings devoid of representation. In her functional textiles she experimented with metallic thread and horsehair as well as traditional yarns, and utilized the raw materials and components of structure as the source of design and beauty. In 1925 the Bauhaus moved to the city of Dessau to a streamlined and revolutionary building designed by Walter Gropius, the architect who had founded the school. The Alberses—who had become friends with Paul and Lily Klee, Wassily and Nina Kandinsky, Oscar and Tut Schlemmer and Lyo-
Anni Albers
Anni Albers Study in red stripes, 1969 gouache on blueprint paper 22 × 17 in. (56 × 43.5 cm) 1994.10.31
Anni Albers Under Way, 1963 cotton, linen, wool 291⁄8 × 241⁄8 in. (73.8 × 61.3 cm) Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
nel and Julia Feininger—eventually moved into one of the masters' houses designed by Gropius. In November of 1933, Josef and Anni Albers were invited to the USA when Josef was asked to make the visual arts the center of the curriculum at the newly established Black Mountain College in North Carolina. They remained at Black Mountain until 1949, while Josef continued his exploration of a range of printmaking techniques, took off as an abstract painter, made collages of autumn leaves, kept writing, became an ever more influential teacher and wrote about art and education. Anni made extraordinary weavings, developed new textiles, and taught, while also writing essays on design that reflected her independent and passionate vision. Meanwhile, the Alberses began making frequent trips to Mexico, a country that captivated their imagination and had a strong effect on both of their art. They often said that, “In Mexico, art is everywhere”: this was their ideal for human life.
as guest teacher at art schools throughout North and South America and in Europe, he trained a whole new generation of art teachers. He also continued to write, paint, and make prints. In 1971, he was the first living artist ever to be honored with a solo retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. At the time of his death in New Haven, Connecticut in 1976, he was still working on his Homages to the Square and his Structural Constellations, deceptively simple compositions in which straight lines create illusory forms, and which became the basis of prints, drawings, and large wall reliefs on public buildings all over the world. In those same years, Anni Albers continued to weave, design, and write. In 1963 she began to explore printmaking, and experimented with the medium in unprecedented ways while developing further as a highly original abstract artist. Her seminal text On Weaving was published in 1965.
collaborating on art work other than their highly inventive Christmas cards and Easter eggs, fostered one another’s creativity and shared their profound conviction that art was central to human existence and that morality and creativity were aligned. Following Josef’s death, Anni Albers helped oversee her husband’s legacy while expanding her own printmaking and textile design until her death in 1994. In 1984, Anni wrote," . . . to comprehend art is to confide in a constant." She and Josef lived their lives devoted to that irrefutable, uplifting constant.
1899-1994
In 1950, the Alberses moved to Connecticut. From 1950 to 1958, Josef Albers was chairman of the Department of Design at the Yale University School of Art. There, and
The Alberses were in some ways like a two-person religious sect, focusing above all on their work and happy to pursue it at a remove from the trends and shifting fashions of the art world. They had an extraordinary relationship, and, while never Biographies
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Anni Albers cotton, rayon, metallic thread, n.d. 51⁄4 × 53⁄4 in. (13.7 × 14.6 cm) 1994.15.2
Anni Albers cotton, n.d. 5 × 4 in. (12.7 × 10.5 cm) 1994.15.57
Anni Albers cotton and gimpe , n.d. 2 × 2 in. (5.4 × 5.4 cm) 1994.15.24
On Weaving Edison, the great inventor, was asked to what, specifically, he attributed his great creativity. His answer was: “I think in pictures.” That is—not in words. Those of us who read art magazines, art catalogues, art revues, know the inclination toward wordiness today and the confused state of mine they, by the abstraction of words, can bring about, —in me at least— or—that perhaps brought them about. Not in all, though, for I am going to quote from one. But as a result of what I learned then, I will be careful and limit my talking and concentrate mainly on comments to the slides, that is, on the visual. But a few things I do want to say before that, out of an old habit—and that is that things are changing so extraordinarily fast today that, except for a few unchanging things, what is true today no longer is true tomorrow. Therefore there remain two things to talk about: change and the timeless, and it is both that we have to be concerned with in our work. If we think of change we are thinking in the direction of technology, of ways of doing things. And if we think of the unchang3
Josef & Annie: Life & Work
ing things, the timeless ones in contrast to the variables, we have in mind immaterial things, for instance, a belief in a cosmological order, in a forward development, in the good, the beautiful, things that have to do with art, as I see it. (Though we are sometimes, even often, made to believe that this old stuff.) Weaving is my concern and looking at it from these two angles, that is, in a specific, circumscribed, way, and also inclusively and comprehensively, it brings me to a number of realizations which, of course, also have to do with living in general. Now, if we look at weaving, or more precisely at making cloth from the technological standpoint, it takes us back about 8000 years, and, more clearly recognizable, 4500 years. Our vista into the past widens with new excavations of fabrics and new methods of dating. The oldest fabrics thus far known to us were found not very long ago, in 1961. They were excavated by a Danish archaeologist in Ancient Anatolia (Asia Minor) in Catal Huyuk, and carbon dates for them are 6500 B.C.
They are said to be twined, a method of thread interlacing preceding weaving, though the photo reproductions do not show this clearly. Some seemed constructed by knotting. In this hemisphere Junius Bird of the Museum of Natural History, New York, excavated in 1946 at the Huaca Prieta at the North Coast of Peru several thousand cotton fragments, dating back to 2500 B.C. The earliest ones are also twined. And on the South Coast of Peru Frederic Engel excavated more recently, in 1959 or 1960, I believe, at Cabezas Largas, material consisting mainly of rushes but held together in the same twined construction. Dates given: ca. 3000 B.C. (published in a French archaeological magazine). You will have noticed that I mentioned here three times “twining” as construction of these earliest fabrics. And perhaps I should define “fabrics” here as a fabricated pliable plane. I will now show you a slide form the Huaca Prieta digging, and a diagram of twining. So here we are right in the midst of technology, for twining, as mentioned above, seems to belong to one of the earliest techniques,
Anni Albers horsehair, chenille, brown thread, n.d. 5 × 31⁄2 in. (12.7 × 9 cm) 1994.15.13
Anni Albers saran, nylon, n.d. 3 × 31⁄2 in. (7.6 × 8.9 cm) 1994.15.72
Anni Albers jute and metallic gold thread, n.d. 3.5 × 4 in. (8.9 × 10.2 cm) 1994.15.98
following perhaps knotting and looping. These fabrics belong to a pre-ceramic age.
that earlier centuries had all the time in the world. What an absurd notion! Just think of the time we save by having an icebox and that we do not have to hunt—in the literal sense—for days, to find food. I will show you in quick succession some slides of looms, each one representing a step forward in regard to speed of production as also in regard to precision, though this seems only secondary, considering the amazing feats of accuracy achieved with little or no implements. Faster and faster we go, increasing the output, limiting, however, with mechanization the range of possible results. With our fingers we can make infinite variables, with machinery only limited variance. In textiles this means that a handweaver can weave far more different things than a mill, equipped for a defined range of end results. Despite all of the advances in regard to speed and the changes the loom has undergone the underlyingprinciple has not changed in thousands of years.
seen, a doubled thread traveling horizontally to lock between its crossed ends the vertically suspended warps. It allows for wide spacing of these horizontal wefts while holding them securely.
No equipment is necessary to produce these except perhaps a gauge for measured looping and later for netting. The twining of rushes, which are stiff and act similarly to warps, can also be achieved without tools, while twining, using pliable warps that are verticals, held together by a crossing of another pliable element, the weft, needs a first piece of machinery, which in later centuries is to become the loom. This is a bar to hold vertical, suspended, threads, that is warp threads, that have to be given tension. In fact this is the principle reason for any loom. (I will show you slides of this.) The first invention in regard to giving tension to the warp was, sensibly, to attach weights to it. This is the warp-weight loom, the Greek loom. It is also the loom of the North Pacific Coast on which still fairly recently the Chilkat ceremonial blankets were woven. To save time is one of the most intelligent human drives and I believe it is responsible for the development of the loom. I have been told however by an archaeologist
We should look now, I think, at the effect on thread construction brought about through the advancing technology. Twining was the earliest technique demanding as equipment more than our fingers. It is, as you have
Now, if I am right in my speculations seeing the desire for ever greater speed as a dominant driving force in regard to technical progress, we can discover, that a method holding these warps in place, using a single weft and crossing it rectangularly over and under alternate taut warps, produces a fabric—a pliable plane—quicker, and, as a by-product, with half the weft needed for each crossing—though more crossings are needed for a firm material. The result is a fabric lighter in weight, faster in production. So here already, 2500 B.C. a concern becomes evident that must have been in its reasoning very much like 1965 A.D. For we, too, want things lighter in weight as also quicker in production. Our air travel demands lightness and lack of bulk. Textiles more than other materials can supply this. You can reduce a textile to a minimum of its size by folding it.
On Weaving
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Josef & Anni
Josef Albers Pergola, 1929 sandblasted flashed glass with black paint 101⁄2 × 173⁄4 in. (26.7 × 45 cm) 1976.6.26
Josef Albers Variant / Adobe, 1956 oil on masonite 157⁄8 × 303⁄8 in. (40.3 × 77.2 cm) 1976.1.1101
Josef Albers Stacking tables ca.1927 ash veneer, black lacquer, painted glass 155⁄8 × 161⁄2 × 153⁄4 in. (39.2 × 41.9 × 40 cm) 185⁄8 × 187⁄8 × 153⁄4 in. (47.3 × 48.0 × 40 cm) 213⁄4 × 21 x 153⁄4 in. (55.4 × 53.3 × 40 cm) 245⁄8 × 235⁄8 × 157⁄8 in. (62.6 × 60.1 × 40.3 cm) 2000.5.3a-d
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Josef & Annie: Life & Work
Josef Albers Twisted but Straight, 1948 machine engraving on black laminated plastic 131⁄2 × 243⁄4 in. (34.3 × 62.8 cm) 1976.8.1761
Josef Albers Ostring IV, ca. 1917 transfer lithograph 101⁄2 × 161⁄4 in. (26.6 × 41.2 cm) 1976.4.51
Josef Albers Leaf Study I, ca. 1940 leaves, colored paper, adhesive 9.5 × 18 in. (24.1 × 45.7 cm) 1976.9.9
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Josef Albers Tierra Verde, 1940 oil on masonite 223⁄4 × 28 in. (55.8 × 71.1 cm) 1976.1.1033
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Josef & Annie: Life & Work
Anni Albers Pasture, 1958 cotton 14 × 151⁄2 in. (35.6 × 39.3 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 69.135
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Anni Albers South of the Border, 1958 cotton, wool 41⁄8 × 151⁄4 in. (10.5 × 38.7 cm.) Baltimore Museum of Art 1959.91
Anni Albers Red Meander, 1954 linen and cotton 201⁄2 × 143⁄4 in. (52 × 37.5 cm) Private collection 1954.12.1
Anni Albers cotton and gimpe, n.d. 41⁄4 × 61⁄2 in. (10.8 × 16.5 cm) 1994.15.36a
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Josef & Annie: Life & Work
Anni Albers Wallhanging, 1925 silk, cotton, acetate 50 × 38 in. (127 × 96.5 cm) Die Neue Sammlung, Munich 363.26
Anni Albers Wallhanging, 1925 wool, silk, chenille and bouclé yarn 93 × 373⁄4 in. (236 × 96 cm) Die Neue Sammlung, Munich 364.26
Anni Albers Red and Blue Layers, 1954 cotton 241⁄4 × 143⁄4 in. (61.6 × 37.8 cm) 1998.12.1
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