Anni Fleischmann Albers was born in Berlin, Germany in 1899. She began her art career as a weaver and became a student at the Bauhaus when she was 23 years old. She studied weaving, stayed at the school to teach and married Josef Albers in 1925. She immigrated to the United States in 1933 with Josef when the Nazi government closed the Bauhaus. Anni introduced new ideas about weaving, art, and design to students at Black Mountain College. She explored weaving with new methods and materials throughout her career and wrote several books about weaving. In the 1960s her interest turned to printmaking. Like her weavings, her prints are studies of color and geometric form. Her prints were displayed in museums and galleries across the country and they brought her great fame. She died in 1994. The Asheville Art Museum is thrilled to own ten of Anni Albers’ prints.
Barbara Morgan, Josef & Anni Albers, 1944 Summer Art Institute at Black Mountain College, 1944, gelatin silver print on paper, 7 5/8 x 9 58 inches. Black Mountain College Collection gift of Lloyd & Janet Morgan and the Barbara Morgan Archive, 2011.42.04.91.
Josef Albers was born in Germany in 1888. In college he studied to be a teacher and he taught in the public schools in the city of Bottrop, Germany. However, he became so interested in art that he left his teaching job and went to art school at the Bauhaus in a large city named Weimar, Germany. He studied for three years and became a teacher at the Bauhaus where he taught students how to paint, draw, make furniture, design wall paper, and work with colored glass. In 1925 he met and married Anni Fleischmann. In 1933 the Nazi government in Germany closed the Bauhaus and Josef and Anni moved to Black Mountain, North Carolina where he became a teacher at Black Mountain College teaching students about color and design. In 1950 he left Black Mountain to teach at Yale University where he began to work on paintings that explored color and optical illusion. He retired in 1958 and spent all his time painting and printmaking until he died in 1976. He is known around the world as an important artist and teacher who inspired many people to become artists. The Asheville Art Museum is very fortunate to own more than eighty of Josef Albers’ prints.