Anni Albers at Tate Modern.

the artist at work

I wasn’t familiar with textile artist Anni Albers but when I saw that Charlotte (English Girl at Home) had made a visit from Birmingham I thought it must be worth a look.

I wasn’t disappointed either. You don’t need to have any previous idea of this artist’s work to enjoy and appreciate the quality of what you see before you in this exhibition at Tate Modern in London until January 27th, 2019.

To give you a little bit of background, Anneliese Fleichmann was born in Berlin, Germany in 1899, she was encouraged to study drawing and painting, becoming a student at the Bauhaus in 1922 where she met artist Josef Albers, marrying him in 1925. Not every class was available to women and she had been unable to get into glassmaking whilst at the Bauhaus [a renowned combined crafts and Fine Arts school from 1919 to 1933 before being closed by the Nazis] so she reluctantly attended textile weaving instead. She soon became fascinated by the whole process of weaving and gradually developed her distinctive geometric style.

She and her husband, who were both Jewish by birth although she herself was baptised a Protestant, eventually moved to the USA in 1933 where they taught at the experimental Black Mountain Academy in North Carolina, an art school with a kind of ’summer camp’ ethos of studies and farm and domestic work.

She continued to experiment and create throughout her long life although eventually she gave up weaving because of the physical strain it placed on her preferring, instead to create prints and monographs.

She was commissioned a number of times to create textiles for specific situations including domestic, hotels and student accommodation. These items included rugs and diaphanous hanging room dividers.

Here are just a few of my photographs, many don’t do full justice to the intricacies of the weave or the subtleties of the colours but hopefully they will give you a taste.

A loom of the type was commonly used by weavers for centuries and still in use today.

At first sight this is a simple monochrome design but it bears closer inspection with its clever use of black, white and yellow threads. They are woven in various combinations in order to make different shades tones and shapes. It reminded me of a crossword without the words.

Sketches of design ideas.

I love the intricacy of the weave and knots, and the subtle shades used too.

There were several examples of jewellery made from everyday items like screws, washers, hair grips and ribbon.

More intricate stitches.

The surface of this work had lots of ‘blobs’ of colours, which you can see below.  I would happily have it on my wall!

Wall hangings and room-dividers.

This work, called Six Prayers, was a favourite with me and my friend Jenny. Having spent quite some time admiring it we discovered it represented the 6 million Jews murdered during the second world war, a very sobering thought.

Another visitor to the gallery pointed out that I blended in with the weaving in my me-made top!

Albers moved on to drawing and printmaking as she got older, often her subject was knots! Top right is a rug. She continued to explore textile-related areas though such as pattern, line, texture and knotting.

There are examples to touch of the many types of fibres it’s possible to weave with.

In the same room there are 3 huge screens showing the process of weaving in close up which was enthralling.

Anni Albers own loom.

As I said earlier, you don’t need to know anything about Albers to enjoy this exhibition. My good friend Jenny (my culture buddy!) is a busy Vicar with no art or textiles experience but we always find much to enjoy on our visits to galleries even if they are outside our usual preferences or knowledge. The work on display here is beautiful and tactile (but don’t touch!) and could look very much at home in a domestic setting, not something I can always say about some art work we’ve seen!

A very enjoyable and worthwhile exhibition,

Sue