Exhibition The grande dame of textile art at the Paul Klee Center in Bern
The Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern is showing a retrospective of the work of German textile artist Anni Albers. The museum is paying particular attention to the architectural interventions of the Bauhaus-trained artist.
05.11.2025, 12:31
SDA
Anni Albers (1899-1994) trained at the Bauhaus in Weimar, Dessau and Berlin, where art, craftsmanship and architecture were regarded as a creative unit. And where, among other things, she attended Paul Klee's weaving class in design theory. In 1933, she fled from the National Socialists to the USA, where she established herself as a weaver, textile designer and visual artist.
For Anni Albers, artistic experimentation with threads on the loom (and later also in the form of paintings on paper) was always closely linked to architecture. Among other things, this led to special fabric inventions that combined aesthetics with practical use.
Special fabric combinations
In 1930, she was commissioned by the then Bauhaus director, the Basel architect Hannes Meyer, to produce a fabric curtain as acoustic wall cladding for the auditorium of the General German Trade Union Federation in Bernau. While the fabric made of fluffy chenille yarn on the back absorbed the sound of the large hall, cellophane fibers on the front reflected the light in the room and radiated a silvery sheen.
From the USA, Albers undertook numerous trips to Latin American countries, where she was inspired by the variety of patterns and textile processing techniques.
Solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art
In 1949, Anni Albers was the first textile designer to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. For the exhibition "Anni Albers Textiles", which was shown in 26 museums in the United States, she designed a new series of textile prototypes.
The Zentrum Paul Klee is now presenting "Anni Albers. Constructing Textiles", the artist's first exhibition in Switzerland. On display until February 22, 2026 are her pictorial woven works and paintings on paper as well as textile interventions for architecture.
