Images coming soon

CONVERSATION CHAIR AND SIDE TABLE 1942 + Designed by A. Lawrence Kocher

Lawrence Kocher was the architect who designed the Studies Building as well as other buildings on the Lake Eden campus. He served on the BMC faculty as Professor of Architecture from 1940 to 1943. Kocher's design philosophy was modernist and pragmatic - to do more with less using new low-cost and lightweight building materials to create functional structures elegant in their simplicity. This chair is an innovative example of the use of plywood; this type of furniture construction would later become commonplace in the post-World War II era. The table is designed for portability - the three pieces of wood can be taken apart for easy storage or moving.

Gift of Sandra Kocher

STUDENTS IN COLLEGE WORK PROGRAM 1930s + Photographs by Kenelm Winslow

As shown in these photographs, the BMC work program was a serious enterprise, often involving demanding physical labor on the college farm or in the kitchen. Work was shared equally by male and female students. Certainly it was the first time local farmers might have seen a young woman dressed in shorts driving a horse-drawn plow!

The work program was intended as a central element in the college experience and all students took part. Influential educator John Dewey's belief in "learning by doing" was embraced by the founders of the college; Dewey visited the BMC campus several times and served on its Advisory Board.

Gift of Ken Winslow

CONSTRUCTING THE STUDIES BUILDING 1941 + St. Louis Post-Dispatch

A landmark event in BMC history was the construction of the Studies Building on the Lake Eden campus in 1941-42. Both the structure itself and the process of building it captured many of the key characteristics of the College. With its roots in the Bauhaus, the German school from which Josef Albers and others at BMC had come, the building was a bold architectural statement in the International style. The building's unadorned functionalism and use of man-made materials set it in stark contrast with its pastoral setting. Erecting the Studies Building required a massive amount of labor by College faculty and students, most of whom had never before built anything! With very little funding available, their efforts were key and this enterprise brought the College community together as never before.

Gift of John Stix

COSTUME PARTY 1930s + Photographs by Kenelm Winslow

Social events were a constant part of the Black Mountain scene. Everybody got dressed up on Saturday nights for music and dancing in the dining hall.

Costume parties were held periodically throughout the year. These parties often reflected the tastes and concerns of the times, as seen in the photographs here, with one of the participants costumed as Adolf Hitler.

Gift of Ken Winslow

UNTITLED PAINTING 1953 + Xanti Schawinsky + Oil on Paper

Alexander (Xanti) Schawinsky taught art, theater, design, and dance at BMC from 1936-1938. He was invited to join the faculty by Josef Albers, who knew him from earlier years at the Bauhaus. Schawinsky was more radically experimental in his approach to the arts than Albers, although this painting seems to be influenced by Albers' brand of geometric abstraction.

Schawinsky brought a fresh sense of play and freedom to the college - an exuberant spirit who energized the sometimes too-serious campus. His theater productions aimed at a "total experience" that was highly abstract, non-literary, and visually expressive. He was one of the first at BMC to truly break down the barriers among traditional art disciplines.

Gift of Mary Parker

OUTDOOR STAGE PERFORMANCE 1930s + Photographs by Kenelm Winslow

Student dramatic and dance performances were held frequently at BMC. Stage productions brought together talents of many kinds, including painters, actors, writers, musicians, and dancers. Productions ranged from the most traditional Greek plays to some of the most avant-garde drama of the 20th century.

Productions added to the sense of community and provided sophisticated entertainment for the little college group remote in its mountain setting. On occasion, as seems to be pictured here, interested townspeople from Black Mountain, Asheville, and elsewhere came to see the shows.

Gift of Ken Winslow

"prehistoric specimens wage evolutionary battle against modern neurotics" 1946 + Assembled 1995 by Florence Fogelson Blumberg

Sports at Black Mountain College were unofficial, typically offbeat, and even satirical. This 1946 football game took place on a trapezoidal field with no parallel lines and was played strictly for fun. This fun reflected the exuberance of the years immediately after World War II, when BMC reached its highest-ever enrollment of almost 100 students.

The printed program for the football game was the first project of a resurrected campus print shop which became a nexus for collaborations between the visual artists and the writers prominent in the later years of the college.

Gift of Florence Fogelson Blumberg

OUTDOOR ART CLASS 1940s + Photographer unknown

Art classes often took advantage of good weather and the beautiful mountain setting to go outdoors to paint or draw. The students here are on the upper deck of the Studies Building very near to Lake Eden. Note the informality of student clothing for the period. The sandals seen being worn here were very popular with both male and female students. The unconventional student dress was among the reasons townsfolk were scandalized by the college.

UNTITLED PAINTING 1951 + Joseph Fiore + Oil on Paper

By the time he joined the BMC faculty in 1949, Joe Fiore's painting had become more abstract. In this work, as in many others, Fiore is experimenting with color and movement.

Fiore gave the painting as a present to the composer Lou Harrison, who was teaching at BMC in 1951-1952. Harrison had come to the rustic setting of the college in part to recover from an emotional breakdown suffered in New York City. While at BMC, however, Harrison flung a bottle through a window, destroyed the score of his first opera, and tore Fiore's gift to pieces in a fit of high emotion. The painting was later restored to its present state.

Gift of Joseph Fiore

FALL LANDSCAPE 1946 + Joseph Fiore + Watercolor on Paper

Joe Fiore came to BMC as a student in 1946 and later became a member of the faculty from 1949 until the school closed in 1957. He was a steadying influence at the college while it was in constant creative and institutional commotion during its last years.

His Fall Landscape is one of the first paintings he created as a student shortly after his arrival in the fall of 1946. It is notable in showing the influence of the mountain setting that surrounded the college. While his later work would evolve into greater abstraction, even this representational work shows a movement toward the painting as pure form and color.

Gift of Joseph Fiore

THE SONG OF THE BORDER-GUARD 1952 + Poem by Robert Duncan; Design by Cy Twombly + Printing & publishing by Nicholas Cernovich

Collaboration among artists working in different media occurred throughout BMC history and is exemplified by this publication. It shows the fine quality publications being done at the college, especially in the 1950s when literary work gained greater prominence.

Poet Robert Duncan, based in San Francisco, was in close contact with Charles Olson and others at BMC for many years, finally coming to teach briefly in 1956. Cy Twombly studied art at the college in 1951-52 in association with Robert Rauschenberg and Franz Kline. Nick Cernovich began as a student in 1948 and explored many interests, eventually becoming a theatrical lighting designer.

Gift of Nicholas Cernovich

EXHIBITION POSTER 1950s + Dan Rice + Oil on Cardboard

Dan Rice first came to BMC to study music composition but was enticed into painting and drawing by Joe Fiore. Rice became good friends and collaborated with the dwindling but highly creative group of students and faculty in the mid-1950s. These included poets Charles Olson and Robert Creeley, painters Fiore and Franz Kline, musician John Cage and dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham. In this piece, Rice is advertising his own campus show. It reads: "SUNDAY, DAN RICE, PAINTINGS, THE EYE, 8 PM, COFFEE." "The Eye" was a nickname for a small structure near the Studies Building.

Gift of the Estate of Lou Harrison

CONCERT BY ROLAND HAYES 1945

The 1945 Summer Music Institute brought two major African-American artists to the college. Carol Brice, a prize-winning Juilliard School student, stayed for a month-long residency. Roland Hayes, who had long been rejected as a classical artist in the United States but had made a distinguished career in Europe, gave a sensational performance of classical works and African-American spirituals.

The audience of about 300 persons (the largest ever at BMC) included many from Asheville and elsewhere. It was a landmark event as the seating of the racially diverse audience was purposely not segregated, as was expected or required by law in the South. In the next few years, BMC made efforts to recruit Black students, one of the very first White colleges in the South to do so.

DISPATCHES FROM THE WAR 1940s + Photographer unknown

BMC was sometimes criticized as being too isolated, too removed from society at large, and thus not preparing students for "the real world." A common retort was that it was in fact better to keep "the real world" at arm's length to let students learn and grow without interference.

During the World War II years, however, BMC lost much of its insularity. With students' own family members and fellow students gone to the war, there was an ongoing concern with world events. Gathering to listen to the latest news of the war was part of the college routine.

"TUESDAY, 2 PM, WEAVING SHOW, DOWNSTAIRS" 1940s + Artist unknown + Oil on Cardboard

Weaving was taught by Anni Albers from 1933 to 1949. Through great talent and hard work she made textile art and design a major part of the curriculum. She experimented endlessly with materials and design.

"We learn courage from art work. We have to go where no one was before us. We are alone and we are responsible for our actions." - Anni Albers

This weaving show poster was found recently in the small cottage at Lake Eden known as Black Dwarf, which was used in the BMC era for faculty housing. The term "Downstairs" in the poster refers to the lower level of the Studies Building, where the weaving studio was located.

Loaned by Jon D. Brooks

ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG WITH UNICORN COSTUME 1949 + Photographer unknown

Robert Rauschenberg studied at BMC with Josef Albers and Willem de Kooning in 1948-49 and returned intermittently in following years. He developed a number of close friendships at the college, including composer John Cage and choreographer Merce Cunningham.

In this photograph we see Rauschenberg with a unicorn costume he created for his sister for Mardi Gras. The costume was modeled by Inga Lauterstein.

QUIET HOUSE, EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR 1940s + Designed and constructed by Alex Reed + Photographer unknown

The Lake Eden structure known as the Quiet House was built in memory of Mark Dreier, who died in a truck accident on campus in 1942. He was the nine-year-old son of Ted and Bobbie Dreier, who were among the founding members of the BMC community.

The Quiet House was designed in the plain style of a Quaker meetinghouse. It was intended as a place for retreat and meditation, and special occasions were sometimes held here.

BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE SEAL & BOOKPLATE 1934-35 + Design and Text by Josef Albers

The design of the BMC seal was a symbolic expression of the idealistic vision of the college and the artistic values of Josef Albers.

As explained in the text by Albers, the new emblem was meant to be quite different from the traditional college seal. Note his stress on community: "...as a symbol of union, we have chosen simply a simple ring. It is an emphasized ring to emphasize coming together, standing together, working together."

BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE PUBLICATIONS

Official BMC publications strove to present an attractive and progressive - but definitely not radical - public image. This was done to allay parents' concerns that they might be sending their children off to a new experimental sort of college - which was exactly what they were doing! In sharp contrast to the official pronouncements are informal student publications such as the satirical Thanksgiving party handbill.

SUMMER SESSIONS

The first Summer Institutes in Art and Music, in 1944, featured an ambitious series of workshops and concerts of music from Bach to Schoenberg. Highlights in later years were the visits by designer Buckminster Fuller in 1948-49 with his first geodesic domes and the first-ever "Happening" in 1952, conceived by John Cage and including music by David Tudor, dance by Merce Cunningham, readings by M.C. Richards and Charles Olson, and paintings by Robert Rauschenberg.

UNTITLED DRAWING 1930s + Everit Albert Herter + Pencil on Paper

E.A. Herter was a student at BMC in the 1930s. This piece is representative of the exercises in geometric abstraction which Josef Albers assigned to his students. Herter's work also had the distinction of hanging on the wall for many years in Roy's Inn, a tavern/restaurant in the area which was a frequent hang-out place for BMC students and faculty.

Gift of Stephen Forbes

LIBRARY SUBSCRIPTIONS 1950 + Typewritten Letter

Although the college continued to struggle with finances, in 1950 the campus community had the opportunity to be well-read. The list of periodicals shows a wide range of interests, with every sort of journal from Foreign Affairs to the New Yorker. The subscription list is also evidence that BMC did not purposely isolate itself from American society, as was sometimes charged.

ACADEMIC LIFE 1930s + Photographs by Kenelm Winslow

While the usual images of BMC life are of art classes and theater performances, much of the daily life looked much like any other college campus. As seen here, a great deal of time was spent in classroom seminars, in science labs, and in private reading. Along with the college's intense atmosphere of community togetherness, solitary time was needed for study and reflection. Gift of Ken Winslow

THE COLLEGE CAMPUSES The two campuses BMC occupied over the years were only a few miles apart in the same beautiful valley but were quite different in architecture and atmosphere.

BLUE RIDGE ASSEMBLY

Views of Lee Hall: Top - Front view; Center - Lobby; Bottom - Rear view 1930s + Photographs by Kenelm Winslow This site was used by the college 1933-41. It was, and still is, owned by the YMCA for conferences and retreats. In the 1930s the site was occupied by the YMCA in the summers and was available to the college the rest of the year. The formal, imposing Robert E. Lee building dominates the grounds. This huge structure held student and faculty housing as well as classrooms. The vast lobby could easily accommodate campus gatherings and quickly became the center of college life.

Gift of Ken Winslow

LAKE EDEN CAMPUS
Top - Dining Hall; Bottom - Studies Building

Owned by the college 1941-56, the buildings at Lake Eden were much more rustic than those at Blue Ridge Assembly. Because it was previously intended only as a summer camp (and is again today), the buildings had to be winterized for BMC. This task was part of the work to prepare the site as a campus, but was only partially successful, as everyone suffered through the winters in drafty and inadequately insulated quarters.

In this Edenic lakeside setting, the two centers of campus life were the Dining Hall and the Studies Building.

COLOR STUDY 1946 + John Urbain + Colored Construction Paper John Urbain's color study is a wonderful example of the student color exercises done for Josef Albers' classes. John Andrew Rice said: "Albers was our glasses. When he came to Black Mountain his love affair with color was already in full spate; and color, I think, was his only love."

John Urbain was one of several BMC students from Cass Technical High School in Detroit, Michigan, and among the post-war students to study at the college under the GI Bill. Gift of John Urbain

ON THE PORCH AT BLUE RIDGE 1930s + Photographs by Kenelm Winslow

The expansive colonnaded porch of Lee Hall was an ideal location for student activities of all sorts, and the long and mild mountain autumn and spring seasons made it possible to be outdoors much of the time.

The student orchestra pictured here was a key part of the music program, and student concerts were featured throughout the school year. The other photo is a typical student dance scene, likely a dress-up Saturday dance, for which male students donned suits or sportcoats and the women wore long skirts. Gift of Ken Winslow

JOSEF ALBERS TEACHING Josef Albers and his wife Anni were the first of many brilliant teachers to come to BMC as émigrés fleeing the dangers in Europe from Adolf Hitler throughout the 1930s and the World War II years. They were also prominent among those who carried the modernist influence of Germany's famed Bauhaus design school to America.

Albers, self-confident and with a well-defined aesthetic, brought to his art classes a powerful sense of discipline along with an ability to awaken student senses. While some students found him too doctrinaire, he was a revered figure in the campus community. Here he is seen in a typical classroom pose, intensely critiquing and commenting.