Sport at the Bauhaus, ca. 1928. Photograph by T. Lux Feininger. Skill and pleasure were revered at the school.
Anni, too, was very excited about the way the walls were going on to this building, and explained, in her soft voice, “You see, I always love the process; it’s more exciting now, with the bricks getting placed, than it will be when it’s finished.”
The man unloading the box on the Avenue Gabriel recalled Josef’s drawing of electrical workers—a sketch he made before going to the Bauhaus, and that I had found in his basement storage in New Haven. What had intrigued him was the way those workers high on a pole had angled their bodies, the act of balancing, the know-how and the coordination.
The sight of the trucker managing his cargo also made me remember one of the last times I had seen Josef, on a bitter January day in 1976. When I turned into the driveway of the Alberses’ house—where, every time I went there, I was struck anew by how nondescript it was, as if I still could not reconcile the blandness of the contractor’s design with the power within—Josef was standing in front of the open garage door with a snow shovel in his hand. He had on a Viyella tattersall shirt, the neck button closed, and khakis. Looking rugged yet boyish, and somehow innocent, the handsome eighty-seven-year-old came to greet me, transferring the wooden handle of the shovel from the right hand to the left. With a smile, as if he enjoyed the problem he was solving with the icy driveway, Josef explained that the northern exposure and the angles of the asphalt caused ice to melt into puddles that then refroze.
He was about to break up some sheets of ice when I tried to persuade him to let me take the shovel. He protested, but I prevailed and began to attack the ice. Not wanting to be rude by leaving me on my own, he stood at the open garage door and watched. Josef’s presence had the impact on me it had had on generations of students; it always made people want to do their very best. I knew that here was a man who preferred good shoveling to bad painting, and I shoveled as if my life depended on it.
“Marvelous … wunderbar,” he told me. Smiling and animated, he went on, “You know, Nick, you have very mature shoveling strokes. The little schoolboys who usually shovel here are half your height.” He indicated this with his hands. “And their shovel throws go only half as far as yours. They have young boys’ strokes. You have a man’s.”
The exaggeration and the symmetry of his comparison belonged to the side of Albers that invested ordinary reality with poetry. Beyond that, what was especially striking was the way Josef was a connoisseur of daily moments. He cared about effective methods and pertinent details, whether the slope of a driveway, the reach of a shovel stroke, or the thickness and texture of a pen nib; it all fascinated him. Above all, he observed things astutely and responded to what he saw in unexpected, original ways.
The Bauhaus was so much more than a place or an artistic movement. Yes, there were the realities of its history and of the individuals who were there, but the heart of the school, for its truest practitioners, had to do with the most universal and timeless issues. Above all, the teachers implored their students to look at things, to observe carefully, to proceed from investigating with the eyes to seeing. With keen observation comes a sense of the miracle of existence.
As I continued to ride along the Parisian street, I thought of Josef’s obsession with bicycles. He did drawings of them and wrote about them; to his mind, a bicycle, with the simple functioning of the pedals, the chains, and the wheels with their many spokes, was a perfect example of form following function. That issue has become a cliché in discussions of design, but its familiarity does not make it any less significant. The architecture along the Avenue Gabriel represents exactly the opposite values, with the profusion of ornament, the unnecessary flourishes on each façade, the emphasis on décor. The Bauhauslers did not oppose that past with all of its filigree and add-ons, but they exulted more in objects like bicycles. It was the use of tubular steel in a bike that led Marcel Breuer to many of his most innovative designs in strong, lightweight furniture.
I was also aware of the leaves that had fallen on the street, and of nature’s seasons. As I delved into the lives of my six Bauhaus characters, one of the elements I found the most striking was the way Klee took daily walks in the great parks of Weimar and Dessau and focused on natural growth. Botany as a source of knowledge was a fundamental of the school. The respect for nature was of paramount importance.
THE DESTINATION of my bike ride was a sports facility that is part of a club in what was once a very grand house. The garden at its entrance was, on this early autumn day, rich in orange and yellow flowers. I thought for a moment of the way that Le Corbusier—among the people most admired at the Bauhaus, and the subject of one of the school’s finest publications as well as a participant in its exhibitions—was more concerned with the choice of trees and flowers in the courtyards of his houses than with many other elements (including some that would have benefited from more attention, like the issue of leaking roofs). The form of those flowers made me think of Klee, and the vibrant colors conjured Kandinsky. I was reminded of their love for the bounty and inventiveness of nature, and their awareness that visual pleasure—color on its own, abstract shapes—can directly impart intense emotional pleasure.
I entered my club, and my thoughts were sent in a totally different direction when I signed in the register and saw that the person ahead of me had put down his name as “Comte de Rochefoucault.” As I wrote my name underneath, I was aware that this, too, had to do strongly with the Bauhaus. The grandson of a glasscutter whose parents immigrated to America, I have very little interest in titles and the concept of nobility, and as an American I am largely ignorant on the subject, but I am intrigued by the way in which those distinctions do and don’t matter to many people. The Bauhaus was established thanks to the interest of a prince, and its first home had once been a royal academy, but it was a place where Jews and Catholics and Protestants, some from aristocratic families and others from humble working-class backgrounds, were engaged side by side in the same effort. The issues of background and family were by no means erased—they were too embedded in German history—but the passion for seeing and for making art, the wish to establish design standards of universal application, rendered them relatively unimportant.
In a bike ride in Paris in 2008, one could readily fathom the real meaning of the Bauhaus. It was a place where life was celebrated, where the visual was accorded supreme importance, where people from any world whatsoever were given the chance to explore and savor the wonders of life and art. Its legacy is not the perpetuation of one particular style; it is, rather, the extension of those larger values all over the world.
Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Nina Kandinsky in Wörlitzer Park, Dessau, 1932. The park in Dessau was a favorite haunt of Kandinsky and Klee.
Acknowledgments
Anni Albers had two favorite words: “Thank you.”
On ceremonial occasions, when she might have been expected to make a long speech—the inauguration of the Josef Albers Museum in Germany; the events where she received prestigious medals or honorary doctorates—in her soft but deep voice, a sort of powerful whisper, she would tell her attentive listeners, “There is just one thing I have to say: ‘Thank you.’” (Her pronunciation of “thank” as “tzank” was in this instance the only trace of an accent.) Her use of those two words gave them rich meaning: one felt she was saying, from the bottom of her heart, that she was indescribably grateful to be alive, to be able to practice her art, to have received the help of others.
I am happy to echo her sentiment. I often wonder what it would have been like to have lived before recent times, and therefore never to have known the paintings of Klee, the Barcelona Pavilion, the compositions of Kandinsky, or many of the other miraculous inventions for which we use the rubric “modernism.” I am beholden to all the true proponents of this breakthrough art and architecture, to everyone who made the Bauhaus feasible, and, of course, to the six principal characters of this book
for their devotion to vision and to change. I owe heartfelt thanks to every teacher, librarian, and archivist—and a range of other kind people—who have enabled me to delve into these marvels of the twentieth century. In particular, I feel inestimable gratefulness to the Alberses: for having been, unfailingly, who they were, and for their constant wish to contribute to everyone’s experience of seeing.
My parents, first and foremost, taught me that life is a gift and that vision is a miracle. They insisted, equally, on a sense of reality about the world’s evils. That combination was essential to any grasp I might have of the Bauhaus.
Then Josef and Anni showed me in a new way that the exploration and celebration of beauty in various forms could be one’s raison d’être as well as one’s personal anchor.
This book would not have been possible without Ruth Agoos Villalovos. She introduced me to Anni and Josef Albers and changed my life forever on that autumn afternoon nearly forty years ago. She is someone of rare warmth and sharp instincts, a specialist in human connection, and she was right in sensing that the meeting she organized that day (or, at least, organized with me, for she took the Alberses by surprise) would have great meaning for all parties involved. I am inestimably grateful to her.
Her husband at the time, Herbert Montwid Agoos, was, in addition to being a man of remarkable charm and exquisite taste, as splendid an observer of the human comedy as he was a connoisseur of art and architecture. He chose and arranged paintings and furniture, and anemones, with an eye I have never seen equaled, and he saw past people’s veneers. He died in 1992, but I still have mental conversations with him all the time, and I love imagining his voice—that wonderful Bostonian accent inflected with sharp enthusiasm—and recalling his wisdom. At one point or another, Herb and I discussed each of the six people in this book, and thanks to him I learned and saw as never before.
Herb and Ruth produced four exceptional children. They were directly affected by their parents’ passion for the spirit of the Bauhaus, and each abounds in rare personal qualities. In particular I thank Ted for his wit and uncompromising eye, Kathy for her clarity as well as for her splendid blend of realism and humor, Peter both for his fantastic imagination and for the companionship he offered on a particularly memorable day with Anni Albers in 1972, and Julie for the staggering beauty of her poetic vision and depth and warmth.
Having published several tomes within the past few years, I have in their acknowledgments done my best to thank the various people who are the mainstays of my life. I feel that it would be repetitive, and boring for my readers, if I named them all again here. But I have to make a couple of exceptions:
Victoria Wilson has outdone herself in providing understanding and encouragement and support that have been the lifeblood of my ability to write. No words properly evoke my luck in knowing and working with this woman of extraordinary courage and integrity. She is bright and independent and funny and kind, and she maintains the long view; these qualities are as splendid as they are rare.
Gloria Loomis is one of those people who simply gets more energetic and astute and warm as time goes on; without her, my life would be like a building without foundation or framing. One does not need to have gone to the Bauhaus to understand the meaning of that idea. Her first name suits how I would like to sing her praise.
As before, but now more than ever, Carmen Johnson at Knopf has epitomized patience, professionalism, and personal grace; Ellen Feldman has worked on this text with an eye and ear for language of the highest order; Peter Mendelsund has, yet again, demonstrated his genius as a designer and the passion to get things just right; Oliver Barker has been the essence of energy and helpfulness, applying himself with fantastic zeal and perpetual good spirits to a range of complex tasks concerning the illustrations for this book; Brenda Danilowitz has demonstrated daunting intelligence and acuity; and Philippe Corfa has manifested phenomenal organizational skill while providing generous personal support. Laura Mattioli, during a visit to a Kandinsky exhibition we made together, led me to new understanding; Daphne Warburg Astor added to my vision in particular of the art of Klee and both the Alberses; Nancy Lewis, vivacious and generous as ever, encouraged my way of seeing; Mickey Cartin has proved himself the most extraordinary of friends, for his knowing vision of vital matters in life as in art; and Brigitte Lozerec’h offered precious council on issues of language. There are, in addition, some newcomers to my list of allies: Barry Bergdoll, the most generous and warmhearted of colleagues; Martin Filler, a source of unequaled camaraderie made all the better by his rare wit; Sophie de Closets, a brilliant editor at Fayard in Paris, who offered encouragement that has been nothing short of magnificent; Sir Nicholas Serota, one of the world’s rare visionaries, who gave me the sort of feedback that is a writer’s dream; and Andres Garces, a master of patience and thoroughness in dealing with vital details. Christian Wolsdorff, at the Bauhaus-Archiv in Berlin, one of the great specialists in the field of Bauhaus studies, prompted me to look at the economic realities of the institution and its faculty; his perspective had a powerful effect on my research. I also thank, for their generous help: Annemarie Jaeggi at the Bauhaus-Archiv in Berlin; Stefan Frey, an independent Klee specialist in Bern; Michael Baumgartner, chief curator of the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern; and Christian Derouet, secretaire et tresorier de la Société Kandinsky of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Oliver Pretzel, in translating, in little time and with true understanding as well as poetry, some highly idiosyncratic German (Paul Klee’s recipes, Josef Albers’s letters written while drunk) for this book, has given its readers, as well as me personally, a real gift.
There are many people no longer alive who led me to greater understanding, in particular, of the ever fascinating Anni. I am especially grateful to Fritz and Anno Moellenhoff for their perspective on the woman who was Fritz’s girlfriend when they were both in a sanatorium at age eighteen (“However you find Anni now is how she has always been,” Fritz told my wife in 1978), and to Hans Farman for grasping his older sister’s nature with such grace. And Jacqueline Onassis provided an outside vision of remarkable authority when, after their one meeting, she turned to me and said, “There’s a lot of power emanating from that wheelchair.”
The rest of you—friends, coworkers, family—who have been there for my work with such generosity and efficaciousness: you know who you are, and please accept my deepest thanks.
When I was a senior at Columbia College in 1968–69, I took a semester-long course in the Bloomsbury group, which was then far less well-known than it has since become. Naturally, we read Woolf and Forster and Strachey and others, and discussed a large cast of characters and their work. At the end of term, when we sat down for our three-hour exam, with our blue books in front of us, we expected the usual two or three mimeographed pages with a combination of short multiple-choice questions and complex essay topics. Instead, the brilliant young professor, Michael Rosenthal, went to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, and wrote, in large letters, “What is Bloomsbury?” He then faced the dozen or so students and said, “That’s the exam question. You have three hours.”
I have never gotten over the brilliance of Professor Rosenthal and his directive. There was no right or wrong answer; what counted was our understanding of the underlying passions and goals of an artistic movement led by very different individuals. Forty years later, I remain extremely grateful to a teacher who encouraged us to see the broad picture while also knowing each genius for who he or she was. My goal in this book has been to capture the true spirit of the Bauhaus while, I hope, evoking the marvelous particularities of the people I consider its stars.
My fellow directors of the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation were selected by the Alberses with good reason. They are not only consummate legal professionals and individuals of immense good heart, but they have a rare understanding of the Alberses’ priorities, artistic as well as human. John Eastman and Charles Kingsley are, in addition, two of the finest friends one could hope for.
Charlie Kingsley, who was the Alberses’ Connecticut lawyer (while Lee Eastman, John’s father, represented them in the New York art world), is simply one of the finest human beings who ever existed. I will never forget the impact of a condolence letter he wrote Anni, thirty-three years ago, just after Josef died. It revealed the qualities I have always found in this man: a depth of understanding and a warmth, and a wish to improve the lives of others. And Anni didn’t even know what a joy it is to play tennis and squash with him. But she did know his energetic and insightful wife, Gretchen, and that was her good fortune as it is mine.
My wife, Katharine, put up patiently with Anni’s more difficult sides while helping in countless ways, in the early years of my Albers work, with everything from the saving of Josef’s photographic film and organizing of rare contact sheets to taking Anni on interminable outings to the kitchenware department of Sears, Roebuck. She also gracefully became part of the Alberses’ circle, which included so many wonderful people who are no longer alive, among them Lee and Monique Eastman, Ted and Bobbie Dreier, Hans and Betty Farman, and Lotte Benfey. Kathy is the truest of partners, and together we speak of this cast of characters as one does of family.
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