The story of Black Mountain College begins in 1933 and comprises a
fascinating chapter in the history of education and the arts. Conceived
by John A. Rice, a brilliant and mercurial scholar who left Rollins
College in a storm of controversy, Black Mountain College was born out
of a desire to create a new type of college based on John Dewey’s
principles of progressive education. The events that precipitated the
College’s founding occurred simultaneously with the rise of Adolf
Hitler, the closing of the Bauhaus by the Nazis, and the beginning of
the persecution of artists and intellectuals on the European continent.
Some of these people found their way to Black Mountain, either as
students or faculty. Meanwhile, the United States was mired in the Great
Depression, and Franklin Roosevelt, committed to putting people back to
work, established the Public Works Arts Project (a precursor of the
WPA).
The founders of the College believed that the study and practice of
art were indispensable aspects of a student’s general liberal arts
education, and they hired Josef Albers to be the first art teacher.
Speaking not a word of English, he and his wife Anni left the turmoil in
Hitler’s Germany and crossed the Atlantic Ocean by boat to teach art at
this small, rebellious college in the mountains of North Carolina.
Black Mountain College was fundamentally different from other
colleges and universities of the time. It was owned and operated by the
faculty and was committed to democratic governance and to the idea that
the arts are central to the experience of learning. All members of the
College community participated in its operation, including farm work,
construction projects and kitchen duty. Located in the midst of the
beautiful North Carolina mountains near Asheville, the secluded
environment fostered a strong sense of individuality and creative
intensity within the small College community.
Legendary even in its own time, Black Mountain College attracted and
created maverick spirits, some of whom went on to become well-known and
extremely influential individuals in the latter half of the 20th
century. A partial list includes people such as Willem and Elaine de
Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Josef and Anni Albers, Jacob Lawrence,
Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Cy Twombly, Kenneth Noland, Vera B.
Williams, Ben Shahn, Franz Kline, Arthur Penn, Buckminster Fuller, M.C.
Richards, Francine du Plessix Gray, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley,
Dorothea Rockburne and many others, famous and not-so-famous, who have
impacted the world in a significant way. Even now, decades after its
closing in 1957, the powerful influence of Black Mountain College
continues to reverberate
--
Black Mountain Collage History
I went to see the Black Mountain Collage
Leap Before You Look exhibition
at the Boston ICA this weekend and was blown away by it. I highly recommend taking a look (if you are in that neck of the woods). It is a wonderful exploration of the legendary school and of the work of the
artists who spent time there...and it has inspired the theme for this
weeks blog posts...
