March 30 – July 10, 1994
Josef Albers (Bottrop, Germany, 1888 – New Haven, USA, 1976) has never been exhibited in Italy on a scale warranted buy his importance in the history of modern art. From March 30 to July 10, 1994, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection together with The Josef Albers Foundation will present in Venice the first major exhibition of Albers’ works in glass. Albers enrolled at the Bauhaus, Weimar, in 1920 as a student, and then, as master, director of workshop and assistant director, remained with the Bauhaus after its move to Dessau in 1925 and until its closure in Berlin 1933. Albers’ first solo exhibit took place at the Bauhaus in 1932 and consisted of his glass works.
Until recently, Italian interest in the Bauhaus and its artists was restricted to a comparatively small circle of specialists in the field of modern art. Thanks to a spate of succesful exhibitions on such an important moment of German art, interests are beginning to change and the curiosity of the public has been roused. An exhibitions of Albers’ glass panel is therefore consonant with this trend. Albers’ creation of large number of important projects with glass began in the early twenties and predominated during his Bauhaus period. He esperimented at that time with a surprising range of techniques – leaded, painted, sandblasted and inlaid glass. Albers’ works in glass are unknown in Italy, and hold a particular interest for the Venetian, glass-oriented public. Albers’ interest in mosaic, and in the relationship between color and light, makes Venice the venue par excellence for this exhibition. The exhibition is curated by Fred Licht, Curator of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, and Nicholas Fox Weber, Executive Director of The Josef Albers Foundation in Orange, Connecticut (USA). The show will bring together over 50 works by Albers drawn principally from the holdings of The Josef Albers Foundation, but including loans from private collections, the Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., and the Kunsthaus Zurich. A central core of glass panels will be supported by preparatory drawings and related paintings.
A fully illustrated catalog will be published, with essay by Fred Licht on Albers’ works on glass, and by Nicholas Weber on Josef Albers’ life and achievements. This will document all known works on glass by Albers, and will therefore become an important reference work.
Alitalia is the official carrier for the exhibition. Program at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection are supported by the Regione Veneto and by Intrapresæ Collezione Guggenheim: Aermec, Arclinea, Bisazza Mosaico, Cartiere Miliani Fabriano, Gruppo 3M Italia, Impresa Gadola, Knoll Italia, Reggiani Illuminazione, Sàfilo Group, Swatch.