A new show celebrates the textile designer Anni Albers whose pioneering work is still weaving its magic today

  • Tate Modern is holding an exhibition entirely devoted to textiles
  • Anni Albers trained at the Bauhaus and experimented with unusual materials
  • Weaving is more popular than ever and many designers look to Albers for inspiration

For the first time, Tate Modern has launched an exhibition devoted entirely to textiles. The subject is the weaver, printer and author Anni Albers (1899-1994).

Bow to the Bauhaus: Geometric Temple is an Albers inspired design by Christopher Farr Cloth

Bow to the Bauhaus: Geometric Temple is an Albers inspired design by Christopher Farr Cloth

Viewing her works in a gallery as you would art is fitting because Albers specialised in pieces known as ‘pictorial weavings’, designed to be looked at rather than sat or walked on.

‘She wanted to see herself as an artist,’ says curator of the exhibition Ann Coxon.  

That’s not to say her work wasn’t practical. She was also famous for developing a sound-proof fabric in 1929 and for creating loose weaves to filter light through the large, modernist windows which were fashionable at the time.

She made draperies shot through with glitzy copper thread for the Rockefeller Guest House in New York, plus room dividers and bedspread fabric for the dorms in Harvard Graduate Center.

Artist and designer: Anni Albers pictured in her studio  at Black Mountain College in 1937

Artist and designer: Anni Albers pictured in her studio at Black Mountain College in 1937

‘Like any craft it may end in producing useful objects, or it may rise to the level of art’, she wrote of her work. 

Albers loved to experiment, even creating jewellery from washers, corks and bobby pins.

Later in life, when arthritis affected her ability to weave, she took up silkscreen printing.

She was the first textile designer to be shown at New York’s MOMA in 1949 and her work continues to be a source of inspiration for designers today. 

Bold: A wall hanging by Anni Albers dating from 1926 and using only three shades of thread

Bold: A wall hanging by Anni Albers dating from 1926 and using only three shades of thread

Weaving, meanwhile, is having a renaissance.

Christopher Farr has an official collaboration with the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and produces rugs from her designs. 

You can see Anni’s love of geometric patterns in rugs such as Camino Real, 1967, based on her rich red tapestry for the lobby bar of Camino Real Hotel in Mexico City. It was fresh and contemporary then and it still works today.

Christopher Farr/Cloth, founded by Christopher Farr, Michal Silver and Matthew Bourne in 2000, is releasing two new designs based on Anni’s prints to celebrate the exhibition. ‘Anni was an artist so her work stands the test of time,’ says Silver. 

Orchestra is based on Anni’s Orchestra series, completed in her 80s and inspired by her concert visits in Salzburg. The colours are uplifting and the designs are screen printed onto Belgian linen in London.

Ochre — a navy blue, soft blue and mustard combination — was taken from Anni’s work and it fits right in with this season’s palette (from £150 per metre, christopherfarrcloth.com).

Musical chairs: Orchestra in ochre by Christopher Farr cloth and based on Anni's  prints of the same name

Musical chairs: Orchestra in ochre by Christopher Farr cloth and based on Anni's prints of the same name

But you can also enjoy the print as silk scarves which the company has produced for the Tate Modern shop (from £60). 

Albers never intended to be a weaver, but even at the egalitarian Bauhaus, where she studied, women were encouraged to take up the craft and the studio became known as the Women’s Workshop.

She loved the rigour and discipline, which gave her a framework within which to explore. 

She was always more interested in structure than colour, wanting the threads to speak for themselves. 

Like many of us, she was inspired by her travels and often went to Latin America. She and her husband, the more famous artist Josef Albers, collected ancient Andean textiles, objects and figurines which gave her work new direction. 

Wonderful weave: Interrupted Pattern II woven by Catarina Riccabona for the New Craftsmen

Wonderful weave: Interrupted Pattern II woven by Catarina Riccabona for the New Craftsmen

Weavers busy reviving the craft include Catarina Riccabona who, mindful of the damaging effects of the textile industry, uses second- hand yarns and recycled linens from a spinner based in Bradford. She weaves cloth from her London studio.

‘Even if you don’t know the person who made it, there is evidence of the human hand, which gives it a warmth,’ says Riccabona.

Certainly there’s nothing nicer than cosying up in a soft throw, though her alpaca one created for the New Craftsmen to chime with the exhibition will set you back. It’s £1,200 while her wall panels start from £1,900, thenewcraftsmen.com.

Eleanor Pritchard also creates gorgeous geometric cushions and blankets, which have more than a nod to the Bauhaus aesthetic. Her Dovetail blanket in indigo, black and tobacco would make a statement while her brilliant yellow Charlock cushion would pep up a tired sofa (blanket £296, cushion, £132, eleanorpritchard.com).

Margo Selby continues Anni Albers’s pictorial weaving tradition. Along with rugs, throws and cushions, she creates hand-woven artworks from her Whitstable studio.

Margo Selby also creates 'pictorial weavings' designed to be looked at rather than trodden on 

Margo Selby also creates 'pictorial weavings' designed to be looked at rather than trodden on 

She describes Albers as a ‘hero’ because ‘she was passionate about creating well-designed textiles as well as intricate handmade wall hung work’. She, like Albers, enjoys the constraints of weaving as they present a challenge within which to work.

‘The Bauhaus weaving studio, where Albers lectured, is a great example of weavers working together, and in a similar vein there is a small team of weavers at the Margo Selby studio,’ she says.

Selby mixes colours on the loom and her Pick by Pick series includes colour combinations used by Albers — rainy day greys mixed with piercing yellow. Her artworks start from £555, margoselby.com.

Anni Albers is on now until January 27, 2019, at Tate Modern, tate.org.uk