With her bold, geometrically patterned textiles and prints, Anni Albers sparked a dramatic reconsideration of weaving as an art form. Her abstract compositions—which include smaller “pictorial weavings” and large wall hangings—feature grids, interlocking shapes, and experimental materials such as metallic thread and horsehair yarn.
The artist attended the Bauhaus in 1922, but the limited disciplines available to women pushed her towards weaving. She studied under painter Paul Klee, who helped her appreciate the power of lines and simple forms, and met the renowned color theorist and painter Josef Albers, whom she married in 1925. When Nazis closed the school in 1933, the Alberses moved to the United States. She taught at Black Mountain College between 1933 and 1949, and her style evolved as she drew inspiration from pre-Columbian art she saw during travels throughout Mexico.
Albers has been the subject of solo shows at the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, Tate Modern, and the Guggenheim Bilbao. Her work has sold for up to six figures at auction and belongs in prestigious collections worldwide.
German-American, 1899–1994