Peter Chappell on Anni Albers at the Tate Modern

THE GUARDIAN
By Peter Chappell

‘Sombre and contemplative’: Six Prayers by Anni Albers. Photograph: © 2018 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/DACS, London

At a glance, Annie Albers’s With Verticals (1946) is like a painting, hung on a gallery wall. The richness of its colour is remarkable; a shade just lighter than blood, the woven cotton gives a depth to the red, an attractive warmth that makes your eye linger over it. I noticed many people held by its orbit. Albers’s gravitas is inherited from weaving’s indelible ancient purposes. Ancient Writing (1936) is etched with similar graphic striations, a record of a language long forgotten. The work was made on Albers’s first trip to Mexico, and reflects the inspiration she took from the indigenous cultures of South America. [More]