Bauhaus to Black Mountain: Josef and Anni Albers
West Building, Black Mountain College Gallery
Celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus, the influential modern art and design school in Germany (1919–33), this exhibition introduces two of its members—abstract artist, theorist, and educator Josef Albers and weaver, textile designer, and printmaker Anni Albers—and their role in bringing Bauhaus principles to America.
In 1933, soon after the Bauhaus closed under Nazi pressure, the couple arrived in the U.S. as refugees and émigré artist-teachers. Josef Albers had been invited to North Carolina to head the art program at Black Mountain College, a progressive school that aimed to make visual arts the center of its curriculum. At the college Josef reconstituted his Bauhaus preliminary course, which focused on the study of materials and color theory. Anni established the Weaving Workshop and taught textile design. Both encouraged other former members of the Bauhaus to lecture or teach at Black Mountain.
The exhibition presents a selection of nine works on paper by the two artists: one woodcut and four silkscreens by Josef Albers—all drawn from the NCMA’s collection and shown here for the first time—and four silkscreens by Anni Albers borrowed from the Johnson Collection in Spartanburg, S.C.
Julie Levin Caro, Guest Curator
Organized by the North Carolina Museum of Art. This exhibition is made possible, in part, by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources; the North Carolina Museum of Art Foundation, Inc.; and the William R. Kenan Jr. Endowment for Educational Exhibitions. Research for this exhibition was made possible by Ann and Jim Goodnight/The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fund for Curatorial and Conservation Research and Travel.
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