Anni Albers

(American/German, 1899–1994)

Anni Albers was one of the most influential textile artists of the 20th century. Working with striking geometric patterns, her works are noted for a radical use of color that helped pioneer the burgeoning Modernist movement. Born Annelise Elsa Frieda Fleischmann on June 12, 1899 in Berlin, Germany, she studied under Martin Brandenburg and then with Paul Klee at the Bauhaus school, where would become a teacher herself. Albers once said that “to be creative is not so much the desire to do something, as the listening to that which wants to be done: the dictation of the materials,” and throughout her life she experimented with materials and inspired a cultural reassessment of fabrics as an art form. Along with her husband, the famed colorist Josef Albers, she also taught at the legendary Black Mountain College in North Carolina. In 1949, the German-American artist had a solo exhibition of her bold and abstract work at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, a highlight of a distinguished and celebrated career. Albers continued to weave, write, and print until her death on May 9, 1994, in Orange, CT at the age of 94.