Nicholas Fox Weber runs the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, writes books and essays, and spearheads a non-profit organization he founded to assist with medical care and education in Senegal. This website focuses mainly on his fifteen books, his journalism, and his lectures.
Weber is a graduate of Columbia College (B.A., major in Art History) and Yale University (M.A., Art History; Fellowship in American Art). He is the author of fourteen books including The Bauhaus Group, Le Corbusier, The Clarks of Cooperstown, Balthus A Biography, Patron Saints, The Art of Babar, and The Drawings of Josef Albers. For nearly forty years, NFW has devoted himself to the legacy of both Anni Albers and Josef Albers.
Weber is represented by literary agent William Clark Associates, and is currently writing an all encompassing biography on Piet Mondrian to be published by Alfred A. Knopf.
"This handsome, cloth-bound visual biography celebrates the prolific output and fascinating relationship of Anni and Josef Albers, two pioneers of modern art and design." — Galerie
Equal and Unequal, Phaidon
A spectacular and unprecedented visual biography of the leading pioneers and protagonists of modern art and design.
Josef - painter, designer, and teacher - and Anni Albers - textile artist and printmaker - are among the twentieth century's most important abstract artists, and this is the first monograph to celebrate the rich creative output and beguiling relationship of these two masters in one elegant volume. It presents their life and work as never before, from their formative years at the Bauhaus in Germany to their remarkable influence at Black Mountain College in the United States through their intensely productive period in Connecticut.
"An ideal gift for the artist couple on your list." —The Strategist
Josef & Anni Albers Foundation
As a graduate student at Yale, NFW came to know, and become a trusted steward of, Anni Albers and Josef Albers, both revered Bauhaus masters; Anni, among the foremost textile designers of the 20th century, and a central figure of the Weaving Workshop at the Bauhaus of pre-war Germany; Josef, one of the most influential artist-educators to immigrate to the United States, acclaimed experimenter of space, color and visual experience through abstract art, primarily through a simple form – the square, in pursuit of colors revealing their essence. “Just putting colors together,” said Josef Albers, “is the excitement of it. The way green submits to blue, for instance, or vice‐versa. What interests me is the way they marry, interpenetrate and produce the baby, the color that is their product together.” Weber was chosen by the Alberses to become head of the Anni and Josef Albers Foundation and for more than four decades, has worked tirelessly to put forth the legacy of the art and ideas of both renowned artists, organizing exhibitions of their work and writing about their art. Weber created and built the Anni and Josef Albers Foundation in the rural, wooded landscape of southeast Connecticut. There the Foundation offers artists residential studios as well as a writer’s apartment. Available as well, are archives, a gallery, and offices. With the Albers Museum in Bottrop, Germany, the Foundation is devoted to enabling all to experience the art and values so meticulously put forth by both Anni and Josef Albers. “I don’t believe, “ said Josef Albers, “that ‘self‐expression’ is the aim of art. Art is performance, and it’s the change of performance, not expression, that excites me.” Said Anni Albers, “I have this very, what you call today, “square” idea that art is something that makes you breathe with a different kind of happiness.” “The reason for esthetics,” said Josef Albers, “ is ethics, and ethics is its aim.” The work of the Foundation – past, present and what’s to come – can be found at The Albers Foundation.
Le Korsa
NFW established American Friends of Le Korsa in 2006 through the Albers Foundation and with the generous support of its trustees. Le Korsa supports medical, educational, and cultural aid in deeply remote communities of rural Senegal, West Africa; in many of the poorest neighborhoods of Dakar and in isolated regions of the eastern parts of the country, not far from the border of Mali. Recently Le Korsa created Thread, a residency program and cultural center in Sinthian, a rural village in the southeastern region of Senegal. Thread was inspired by the work and ideas of Anni and Josef Albers. Anni Albers believed in the value of “starting at zero; ” that “you can go anywhere from anywhere.” Josef Albers spent a lifetime in an effort “to open eyes.” The Albers’s ideas, combined with Josef’s perpetual goal to employ “minimal means for maximum effect;” have made Thread a flexible and evolving public space. Thread enables local and international artists to live and work in its two artists’ dwellings, as well as make use of its ample indoor and outdoor studio space. It is used by the local population in a variety of ways, from hosting celebrations, school performances, and classes in language and in health, to being the home of village meetings, as well as the arena for an annual soccer tournament that draws thousands of people to Sinthian each fall. For more information about Thread projects, go to AFLK.
Home page drawing by François Olislaeger Site produced by Adhiraj S. Shekhawat