Anni later wrote “one of the outstanding characteristics” about her tenure at the Bauhaus was “an unprejudiced attitude toward materials and their inherent capacities.” She appreciated how students, coming in with little or no weaving experience, would improvise and struggle, working their way towards an understanding of the technique as it was necessary to learn for their practice. For both, this was the beginning of a life of pedagogy, and a time to form ideas about what art is and how to teach it. The couple was married in Berlin in 1925 and soon became the the first and only husband-wife teaching pair at the Bauhaus. Anni, who because of her gender was denied entry to all workshops except for weaving, was beginning a lifelong engagement with textiles. Though he would later gravitate toward painting, Josef was initially interested in crafts like glass working and furniture making. Josef and his wife, Anni, with whom he laid the foundations of both contemporary art education and American artistic modernism, met in 1922 in Weimar, Germany, at the Bauhaus. This week - between March 19th, the day he was born in 1888, and March 25, the day he died eighty-eight years later - we highlight aspects of his life to commemorate his work and enduring legacy. Josef Albers was a hugely influential German-born American artist and educator.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |