Anni Albers

Born Annelise Fleischmann in Berlin, Anni Albers entered the Bauhaus and joined its weaving workshop after encountering restrictions on women in other disciplines. She developed an innovative practice combining structure, colour and industrial design, married Josef Albers in 1925, and eventually helped direct the Bauhaus weaving workshop.

Because Albers was of Jewish ancestry and the Bauhaus closed under Nazi pressure, she and Josef Albers left Germany in 1933 for Black Mountain College in North Carolina. There she developed weaving as both a functional craft and an autonomous modern art form, combining experimental materials with close study of textile traditions. She later worked independently in Connecticut and published influential writing on weaving and design.

In Sarah Loudin Thomas’ These Blue Mountains, Encounters with Josef and Anni Albers show one possible future for displaced artists, while her attachment to Garland complicates the duty she feels towards Fritz’s mother in Berlin.