Anni Albers

Anni Albers was one of the most influential textile artists of the twentieth century. Renowned for her innovative wall hangings and textiles, she was also a printmaker.

Biography of Anni Albers

Anni Albers was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1899. From a young age, she was captivated by art and the visual world. During her youth, she painted and studied under impressionist artist Martin Brandenburg from 1916 to 1919. 

Despite the significant challenges and harsh living conditions often faced by art students, she decided to attend art school. In 1919, she enrolled at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Hamburg but attended for only two months. In April 1922, she began her studies at the Bauhaus in Weimar.

At the Bauhaus, she spent her first year studying under Georg Muche and Johannes Itten. Anni Albers struggled to find her niche at the Bauhaus, as women were barred from certain disciplines. During her second year, unable to join the glass workshop with her future husband Josef Albers, she reluctantly deferred to the weaving workshop, the only option available to women.

In the Weaving Workshop, she studied under Paul Klee and others, approaching the discipline with relentless investigation and frequently incorporating non-traditional materials into her compositions.

The Bauhaus in Dessau was closed in 1932 due to pressure from the Nazi Party and briefly relocated to Berlin, where it permanently closed in August 1933.

Albers and her husband Josef moved to the USA to teach at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. The couple was invited by Philip Johnson to teach at the experimental Black Mountain College, where they both taught until 1949. During these years, Anni Albers's design work, including weavings, was exhibited throughout the US. She received her US citizenship in 1937.

In 1949, Albers made history as the first textile designer to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

After leaving Black Mountain in 1949, Albers and her husband moved to Connecticut, where she established a home studio. Over the next thirty years, she focused on creating mass-producible fabric patterns and produced the majority of her "pictorial" weavings.

In 1963, during a visit to the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in California, Albers ventured into printmaking and dedicated herself primarily to this medium until her passing. In 1976, Albers had two significant exhibitions in Germany.

During the final two decades of her life, she collaborated with leading printers of her time, exploring lithography, screenprinting, embossing, woodcuts, and various intaglio techniques. Albers remained active, traveling to Latin America and Europe to design, create prints, and lecture until her passing on May 9, 1994, in Orange, Connecticut. Anni Albers's impact has been immense. Through her artwork, teaching, and writings, she has inspired and guided numerous artists toward directions that are now integral parts of the mainstream.

Exhibitions of Anni Albers's Works

The artist received numerous major exhibitions during her lifetime and was honored with a touring retrospective on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of her birth in 1999.

Recent exhibitions of her works include "Anni and Josef Albers Donation" at Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris in France (2023), "Anni and Josef Albers" at Kunstmuseum Den Haag in The Hague (2022), "Anni Albers: Work with Materials" at Syracuse University Art Museum in Syracuse (2022), "Anni and Josef Albers: L’art et la vie" at Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris and at IVAM in Valencia (2021), "Anni Albers: Pasajeros 4" at Museo Jumex in Mexico City (2020), and many more.

Additionally, Anni Albers's works have found a permanent home in various public collections, including Die Neue Sammlung Munich, Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung, Victoria and Albert Museum, The Detroit Institute of Arts, Harvard University Art Museum, among others.