Anni Albers and Josef Albers: The First Couple of Modern Design

Anni Albers and Josef Albers The First Couple of Modern Design
Glass, steel, wood, silk, and wool in their hands became pared-down chairs or textured wall hangings. And this was in the early 20th century - decades before home-design stores like IKEA, Crate & Barrel, and Pottery Barn promised homeowners a completely designed environment.

The couple met in 1922 as students at Germany's now-famous Bauhaus school. Their teachers included artists Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. Almost everything today's designers take for granted originated at the Bauhaus, including graphics used in advertising, stylish mass-produced furnishings, the International Style of architecture, even the modern kitchen layout. The Alberses, who imbibed the heady atmosphere of experimentation at the Bauhaus, are considered pioneers of modern design.

An exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum sets Josef's furnishings off against Anni's textiles, creating a conversation between them.

"Josef and Anni Albers: Designs for Living" is the first show to link the two artists at an especially formative period in their lives. "It takes Josef's glass constructions and Anni's wall hangings of the same years and juxtaposes them," says Nicholas Fox Weber, an exhibition curator and head of The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. "This is the most significant link in their work, and no one has ever put these works