Anni Albers

Concurrent with a significant new exhibition at the gallery in New York, this online presentation offers a view of Anni Albers’s boundless world, through the artist’s unique designs, textile patterns, and works on paper.

In the words of Nicholas Fox Weber, Executive Director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, “Albers’s guiding principle was: aesthetics are not confined to a single area of life. At the same time as she put miracles of playfulness and intelligence on the walls, she did so in fabrics to hang as room dividers, in upholstery materials, in draperies, and in rugs that brought diversion and vitality to the floor. What she cherished in one arena she prized everywhere.”

This collection brings together works on paper from the Bauhaus pioneer, along with a range of new textiles and designs in limited edition color-ways produced in collaboration with British textile maker Christopher Farr, a longtime partner of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation.

Image: Anni Albers’s W/Co, 1974, featured alongside E Wallpaper (Dark blue). Photograph by Max Burkhalter

“Neither the use for which an object is intended nor the material it is made of keeps an object from being art.” —Anni Albers, from her 1963 lecture, “On Weaving”

Anni Albers card weaving at Black Mountain College. Courtesy of Western Regional Archives, State Archives of North Carolina

E Wallpaper (Dark blue), featured with Textiles in E Heavy Linen (Dark Blue) and Triangulated Heavy Linen (Blue). Photograph by Max Burkhalter

Installation view, Anni Albers artwork pictured alongside E Wallpaper (Dark Blue) and chairs by Josef Albers. Photograph by Max Burkhalter

E Wallpaper (Dark blue), featured with Textiles in E Heavy Linen (Dark Blue) and Triangulated Heavy Linen (Blue). Photograph by Max Burkhalter

Anni Albers

Enmeshed I, 1963

Two-color zinc plate and stone lithograph on paper

20 1/4 x 27 1/8 inches (51.4 x 68.9 cm)

Anni Albers

Stones, 1983

Screenprint with resin

Image: 19 x 17 1/2 inches (48.3 x 44.5 cm) Sheet: 28 1/2 x 22 3/8 inches (72.4 x 56.8 cm)

Albers’s revolutionary “pictorial weavings”—textiles designed expressly as art—were vastly influenced by Pre-Columbian art and textiles, which she studied and collected over the course of her many trips to Mexico in the 1930s and 40s. By 1949, Albers had become the first textile designer to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Her intricately patterned, complex compositions were built upon geometric motifs and minimal, reiterated elements across both her prints and textiles.

Installation view, Anni Albers: Textiles, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1949. Photo: Soichi Sunami. Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York

Anni Albers’s wallhanging 'Camino Real' in the Lobby Bar at Camino Real Hotel, 1968. Photograph by Armando Salas Portugal. © 2019 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

This work is part of a series of screenprints titled Camino Real, which Albers created after the design for the Camino Real Hotel in Mexico City. Triangles such as these became a dominant motif in Albers's work during this period, due in large part to the difficulty and lack of precision inherent to including triangular forms within the gridded structure of textiles. As Fox Weber describes, Albers's prints "were by no means transpositions for another medium; rather, they were celebrations of the possibilities of her new realm."

Anni Albers

Camino Real , 1967-1969

Screenprint on Mohawk Superfine Bristol paper

Image: 16 x 15 inches 40.6 x 38.1 cm

Sheet: 23 1/2 x 22 inches 59.7 x 55.9 cm

Anni Albers E Wallpaper (Red), featured in a Bauhaus reading room. Photograph by Max Burkhalter

Anni Albers textiles pictured with related books. Photograph by Max Burkhalter

Textiles in E Heavy Linen (Pink) and (Red) and Triangulated Heavy Linen (Red). Photograph by Max Burkhalter

“Anni’s world, her materials, all juxtapose what is very solid and sure and steady with what is uncertain, mysterious, adventurous—results that never stop engaging us, that are independent of anything we have ever seen elsewhere, that immortalise the love of making that Anni Albers felt to the core.”

—Nicholas Fox Weber, Executive Director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation

An installation view featuring artworks by Anni Albers, alongside E Wallpaper (Red). Photograph by Max Burkhalter

Anni Albers

A, 1968

Screenprint on Mohawk Superfine Bristol paper

Image: 22 1/8 x 18 3/4 inches (56.2 x 47.6 cm)

Sheet: 29 3/8 x 25 7/8 inches (74.6 x 65.7 cm)

“For Anni, whose perpetual goal was to achieve what was 'universal and timeless'—among her favorite words, of the same high echelon as 'process'—each print was an effort to make art to achieve that aim.”

—Nicholas Fox Weber

Anni Albers

Do V, 1973

Screenprint on Fabriano Cottone paper

Image: 19 x 19 inches (48.3 x 48.3 cm)

Sheet: 25 5/8 x 25 5/8 inches (65.1 x 65.1 cm)

Anni Albers

Do-C , 1973

Screenprint

Image: 15 5/8 x 15 5/8 inches (39.7 x 39.7 cm)

Sheet: 19 x 16 1/2 inches (48.3 x 41.9 cm)

Anni Albers's GR I, 1970, featured alongside E Wallpaper (Dark blue). Photograph by Max Burkhalter

Anni Albers

GR I, 1970

Screenprint on Arches paper

Image: 20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

Sheet: 29 x 24 inches (73.7 x 61 cm)

Anni Albers

W/Co, 1974

Screenprint and photo-offset print on Arches paper

Image: 15 x 12 1/2 inches (38.1 x 31.8 cm)

Sheet: 29 3/4 x 22 inches (75.6 x 55.9 cm)

Anni Albers

Do I, 1973

Screenprint on Fabriano Cottone paper

Image: 17 x 17 inches (43.2 x 43.2 cm)

Sheet: 25 5/8 x 25 5/8 inches (65.1 x 65.1 cm)

“Her constructions are full of variation, and have a subtle sense of balance that never yields a formula, and that provides continuous visual exercise and diversion.”

–Nicholas Fox Weber

Anni Albers

Blue Meander, 1970

Screenprint on Mohawk Superfine Bristol paper

Image: 19 1/2 x 16 inches (49.5 x 40.6 cm)

Sheet: 28 x 24 inches (71.1 x 61 cm)

Anni Albers

B, 1968

Screenprint on Mohawk Superfine Bristol paper

Image: 22 x 18 3/4 inches (55.9 x 47.6 cm)

Sheet: 29 1/2 x 25 7/8 inches (74.9 x 65.7 cm)

Photograph by Max Burkhalter

MZ Wallace has partnered with the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation on a limited-edition Metro Tote. All proceeds support Le Korsa foundation’s educational efforts for women in Senegal.

For more information or to purchase, click here.

Limited-edition MZ Wallace Metro Tote. Photograph by Max Burkhalter

These unique Anni Albers textiles and non-woven wallpapers are produced exclusively for this online viewing room in collaboration with Christopher Farr in association with The Josef & Anni Albers Foundation. For the past 10 years, Christopher Farr, Matthew Bourne, and Michal Silver have worked closely with Lucy Swift Weber at the Foundation to realize the vision of Josef and Anni Albers through handmade rugs, tapestries, fabrics and wallpapers.

The pattern for the Temple rug was developed for Anni Albers’s 1956 studies for the Ark hanging panels, produced for the Jewish Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, Texas.

Anni Albers

Temple (Berry)

Hand-tufted silk rug

35 1/2 x 67 inches (90.2 x 170.2 cm)

Produced by Christopher Farr in association with The Josef & Anni Albers Foundation

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Anni Albers

Temple (Emanu-el)

Hand-tufted silk rug

35 1/2 x 68 1/2 inches (90.2 x 174 cm)

Produced by Christopher Farr in association with The Josef & Anni Albers Foundation

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Albers based the original green, blue, and gold color scheme on the Temple Emanu-El's stained-glass windows, designed by Hungarian sculptor György Kepes.

Anni Albers

E Heavy Linen (Light Blue)

100% Linen

Width 52.8" / 134 cm

Horizontal repeat 13.2" / 33.5 cm

Vertical repeat 13" / 32 cm

Category: Indoor Printed

Drop type: Straight Match

Upholstery: 25,000 rubs

Country of origin: England

Other: Please allow for 3% shrinkage when calculating required quantities

¬†

Shipping co

Available

Anni Albers

Triangulated Heavy Linen (Red)

100% Linen

Width 52.8" / 134 cm

Horizontal repeat 13.2" / 33.5 cm

Vertical repeat 13" / 32 cm

Category: Indoor Printed

Drop type: Straight Match

Upholstery: 25,000 rubs

Country of origin: England

Other: Please allow for 3% shrinkage when calculating required quantities

¬†

Shipping cost per 10 yard

Inquire

Anni Albers

E Heavy Linen (Pink)

100% Linen

Width 52.8" / 134 cm

Horizontal repeat 13.2" / 33.5 cm

Vertical repeat 13" / 32 cm

Category: Indoor Printed

Drop type: Straight Match

Upholstery: 25,000 rubs

Country of origin: England

Other: Please allow for 3% shrinkage when calculating required quantities

¬†

Shipping co

Inquire

Anni Albers textiles pictured with pages from Anni Albers: Notebook 1960–1970. Photograph by Max Burkhalter

Anni Albers

E Heavy Linen (Dark Blue)

100% Linen

Width 52.8" / 134 cm

Horizontal repeat 13.2" / 33.5 cm

Vertical repeat 13"/ 32 cm

Category: Indoor Printed

Drop type: Straight Match

Upholstery: 25,000 rubs

Country of origin: England

Other: Please allow for 3% shrinkage when calculating required quantities

¬†

Shipping cost per 10 yard

Inquire

Anni Albers

Triangulated Heavy Linen (Blue)

100% Linen

Width 52.8" / 134 cm

Horizontal repeat 13.2"/ 33.5 cm

Vertical repeat 13"/ 32 cm

Category: Indoor Printed

Drop type: Straight Match

Upholstery: 25,000 rubs

Country of origin: England

Other: Please allow for 3% shrinkage when calculating required quantities

¬†

Shipping cost per 10 yard

Inquire

Photograph by Max Burkhalter

Anni Albers

E Heavy Linen (Red), 2019

100% Linen

Width 52.8" / 134 cm

Horizontal repeat 13.2" / 33.5 cm

Vertical repeat 13" / 32 cm

Category: Indoor Printed

Drop type: Straight Match

Upholstery: 25,000 rubs

Country of origin: England

Other: Please allow for 3% shrinkage when calculating required quantities

¬†

Shipping cost per 10 yard

Inquire

Anni Albers

E Wallpaper (Dark blue)

100% Non-woven Wallpaper

Width 52.8" / 134 cm

Horizontal repeat 13.2" / 33.5 cm

Vertical repeat 13" / 32 cm

Drop type: Straight Match

Country of origin: England

Shipping cost per 10 yard roll: $95

¬†

Lead time: 4 weeks

Inquire

Anni Albers

E Wallpaper (Red)

100% Non-woven Wallpaper

Width 52.8" / 134 cm

Horizontal repeat 13.2" / 33.5 cm

Vertical repeat 13" / 32 cm

Drop type: Straight Match

Country of origin: England

Shipping cost per 10 yard roll: $95

¬†

Lead time: 4 weeks

Inquire

E Wallpaper (Dark blue). Photograph by Max Burkhalter

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