Josef Albers began using glass as a primary medium, fusing together pieces he salvaged from the Weimar, Germany, garbage dump, when he started studying at Bauhaus in 1920 at the age of 32. His repurposing of the reclaimed materials exemplified the groundbreaking teaching institution which underscored the intersection and integration of artists, architects, and craftspeople.
The vibrant Scherben im Gitterbild (Shards in a Picture Grid), created circa 1921 from glass, wire, and sheet metal, became a prototype for the magnificent, monumental stained glass window Josef Albers designed for the staircase of the Sommerfeld House. Adolf Sommerfeld, an industrialist, lumber mill owner, building contractor, and real estate developer specializing in timber structures, commissioned architects Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer to design his private residence. The collective project became emblematic of the early, Expressionistic phase of the school, with nearly all Bauhaus Weimar workshops participating. Bauhauslers made all the light fixtures, rugs, wall hangings, murals, and covers for the radiators.
Born and raised Catholic in Westphalia, Germany, Josef Albers attended Sunday Mass and went to confession through the end of his life, and the awe-inspiring secular artwork evokes his faith as much as his revolutionary spirit. In 1922, Josef Albers met his future wife, fellow Bauhaus student Annieliese Fleischmann, who eschewed an elite existence with a dressmaker and a cook in favor of an austere lifestyle with a man from humble means. Together, the powerhouse couple became world renowned as inimitable and influential trailblazers of twentieth-century Modernism and beyond.
Scherben im Gitterbild welcomes viewers to Anni y Josef Albers. El arte y la vida (Anni and Josef Albers: Art and Life) which opened yesterday (February 24) at IVAM (Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno) in Valencia, Spain. The exhibition, spanning paintings, textiles, photographs, his furniture, her hand-crafted jewelry made of quotidian objects, drawings, color studies, and ephemera, chronicles the unrivaled couple’s artistic evolution and wide-reaching impact on the art and design worlds. On view through June 19, this cleverly curated iteration of Anni et Josef Albers: L'art et la vie, an exhibition at Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, which featured more than 350 works, is painstakingly pared down and arranged chronologically by Nicholas Fox Weber, Executive Director of The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation.
Each work meticulously hung to greet the viewer’s direct gaze, the chronological presentation illuminates their respective oeuvres, revealing the progression of their work and their influence on each other. Fox Weber, a close friend of the couple, offers an intimate perspective through deep insights and delightful anecdotes in the first exhibition to collectively honor the couple’s profound achievements.
“They shared the same sense of beauty, similar aesthetics, a fondness for empty rooms, verticals and horizontals,” Fox Weber explained, after a private tour of the expansive IVAM galleries. “More than anything else, they really shared an aesthetic with the tone of their art. There is also an enormous modesty and simplicity in everything they do. They came from worlds that had none of that simplicity, but both were drawn to simplicity in their lives and the making of their art.”
From personal correspondence with Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, to a White House dinner invitation from President Lyndon B. Johnson, to hand-written personal letters, poetry, and a video narrated by Fox Weber, prepare to transcend art history and examine the lives and careers of Anni and Josef Albers far beyond the collapse of Bauhaus under Nazi rule, journeying with them to Black Mountain, a small experimental college in the mountains of North Carolina, to their beloved Mexico, and aorund the world.
“The place where they most found a relationship between art and design is México,” said Fox Weber. “They took 14 trips there. In Mexico, art is everywhere.” Fascinated by Pre-Columbian Art, Anni collected an array of objects of art during their travels which deeply inspired her practice.
Anni Albers was ahead of her time, using gold Lurex, a metallic fiber made of aluminum wire coated with a transparent sheet of plastic, along with black and white floating weft to create “thread hieroglyphs,” in creating six panels for the Congregation B’nai Israel of Woonsocket, Rhode Island. The stunning ark panels commissioned in 1962 have a lyrical feel that evokes the voice of a cantor.
“She had never seen them installed. She was Jewish, but had never been in a synagogue and had been confirmed as a Protestant and baptized as a Protestant. But she was still very happy to have the commission, and I think that it's a wonderful example of thread giving the impression of language,” said Fox Weber. “The word textile comes from the idea of text, and sometimes there's a sort of an incomprehensible text in there, just as for Annie, the idea of the Torah scrolls was in a language she didn't understand. But even the sound of Hebrew being chanted is something that you can feel working in this piece.”
From Anni Albers’ large-scale functional and ornamental works, to Josef Albers’ wildly practical sleek furniture and furnishings, including a tea cup with handles that allow for both server and receiver to grasp, the most comprehensive retrospective exhibition on the pioneering duo contextualizes the breadth and scope of their contributions.
Hung in a single row across all walls of one gallery, a vast selection of Josef Albers’ Homages series compels us to examine how his innovative use of color manipulates our gaze and focus. The inimitable Homages are composed of four superimposed squares of oil color applied with a palette knife directly from the tube onto a white, primed Masonite panel.
“Joseph Albers painted almost 3,000 squares, and the thrill of this exhibition was the chance to install things in unexpected ways,” said Fox Weber.
Anni Albers 'With Verticals' (1946)
© 2022 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation_Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York_VEGAP, Madrid
Large-scale works like Anni Albers’ With Verticals (1946) demonstrate her painterly eye, as if the woven background is a canvas covered in one color of paint before precise vertical brushstrokes are applied.
“She told me she cheated on the technique of this one because the vertical lines are embossed and not woven right in,” Fox Weber said. “But I think that what she's done with the diagonals is simply extraordinary.”
Anni Albers 'Wall XII' (1984)
© 2022 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation_Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York_VEGAP, Madrid
Though each maintained their singular practices across genres, styles, and mediums, the dialogue between their work is evident over the decades, thanks to Fox Weber’s astute vision. We’re reminded of Josef Albers’s Gitterbild (circa 1921) when Anni Albers appears to borrow from or reinvent his vivid stained glass study with Walk XIV (a subtle jewel-hued version of the monochromatic Wall XII pictured in this review), a series created in 1984 when she surrendered to her hand tremor and let it pull her away from the exactness that guided her earlier work. This late-career decision made me rethink how we as a society, especially in the United States, are quick to dismiss any physically limiting disease as debilitating rather than accepting all stages of life and empowering ourselves with creative expression. Artists have always experimented with various implements to achieve creative breakthroughs, so it makes sense to think of an unsteady hand as yet another tool.
“She was actually creating walls that reminded her of Aztec walls, and also of the stone walls of Connecticut. She let her shake determine what she was doing, even putting water color wash into them,” explained Fox Weber. “She accepted the idea of irregularity. In Paris, these were in two rows. I think there is something wonderful here about having them all at the same level, so that you can appreciate them in a very, very different way, and see the wonderful changes as the colors change.”
Keen observers of everything around them, the couple were always “going out in totally new directions,” said Fox Weber. “Nothing was too modern.” Acknowledging that every relationship has its struggles, Fox Weber emphasized that they remained married from 1925 until his death in 1976, always forging new paths and encouraging each other to change the world.
Anni Albers (1899–1994) was a textile designer, weaver, writer, and printmaker who reinvigorated fabrics as an art form, both in their functional roles and as wallhangings. Her efforts elevated textiles to fine art, triumphing over the canonical fallacy that relegated such mastery to women’s craft. Josef Albers (1888–1976) was a teacher, writer, painter, and color theorist, best recognized for the Homages to the Square series painted between 1950 and 1976, and for his seminal 1963 book Interaction of Color.
Visiting Valencia, it is evident why this city was chosen for such a profound exploration of a pivotal phenomenon in art history. Viewing this exhibition in Valencia amplifies the importance of recognizing these complex relationships across disciplines, styles, and practices. A world-class city must celebrate all facets of cultural achievement.
Situated on the southeast coast of Spain, Valencia is a major Mediterranean port with an enduring legacy of design, earning it the World Design Capital® 2022 (WDC 2022) designation. The third most populated city in Spain, after Madrid and Barcelona, Valencia is home to 34 free museums and diverse architectural and cultural wonders that elegantly and enthusiastically marry ancient and futuristic traditions.