The Albers Collection of Pre-Columbian Art

"The Anni and Josef Albers collection of pre-Columbian art at Yale University's Peabody Museum spans a broad range of styles, time periods, and materials. The collection includes examples from various Mesoamerican cultures covering three millennia, from about 1500 B.C. to the fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521, which ended the postclassic period. Among the objects are figurines, ceramic vessels, jade pendants, and painted terra-cotta pieces. Anni and Josef Albers left Germany late in 1933, after the Gestapo forced the closing of the Bauhaus, to teach at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. In 1935, during their first trip to Mexico, they purchased their first figurine. They were to return to Mexico thirteen times, becoming enthusiastic collectors at a time when few people shared their interest. The collection eventually encompassed more than one thousand objects, and the finest of these are assembled in this stunning volume. Author Karl Taube catalogues and discusses each of the nearly three hundred objects reproduced and set a context for the collection with a text that summarizes our knowledge of pre-Columbian art: among his subjects are the history of human settlement and habitation in the New World; the cultures of Mesoamerica beginning in 1500 B.C.; and the development of art in each society, their use of different materials and tools, and their variations of style. Nicholas Fox Weber, Executive Director of the Josef Albers Foundation, contributes a fascinating essay that gives the history of Anni and Josef Albers' collection of pre-Columbian art in the context of their lives and careers and also relates their interest in these objects to their own art--Josef's paintings, Anni's weavings, and both artists' prints. Their own work is characterized by the same eye for form, knowledge of materials, feeling for visual grace, and spiritual life as the uniquely enchanting pre-Columbian art that represented their greatest extracurricular enthusiasm." -- Provided by publisher