How could I have lived so close to Black Mountain, NC, for so many years, and not appreciated until recently its role in mid-century American art history?!! Put very briefly, Black Mountain College was an unconventional, somewhat experimental school. It took a holistic approach to learning, in which the study of art was deemed essential to a liberal arts education. Its faculty and students came to include many luminaries of the art world--more about which below.
The head of the art program at Black Mountain was Josef Albers. Albers was born in Germany, and was active in the Bauhaus group until it was shut down by Hitler. Under Nazi pressure, many German artists, including Albers, fled Germany for the US, where he joined the faculty at Black Mountain. Albers was an abstract artist who published extensively on seeing and teaching color. His most celebrated series of paintings is "Homage to the Square", in which each panel consists of squares of solid color, nestled within each other.
Imagine my surprise and delight when I recently visited the Highlander Mountain House inn in Highlands, NC (not too far from Black Mountain), and found an original Albers painting on the wall!! It is said that Elaine de Kooning, who studied with Albers at Black Mountain College, asked to interview him for a feature in ArtNews. Albers agreed, and added "I will do a series of color demonstrations and will call it "Homage to the Square". Thus began a series that would occupy him for the next twenty-six years.
If you are a serious student of color, Albers' books are a must read. A couple of his quotations: "In visual perception a color is almost never seen as it really is." And "In order to use color effectively it is necessary to recognize that color deceives continually." So true!
You might not know of Albers, but you are more likely to know others who were at Black Mountain College. Among the most famous are Willem de Kooning and his wife Elaine. Also Robert Motherwell, Cy Twombly, and Robert Rauschenberg, to name a few. The painting just above was painted by Bill de Kooning at Black Mountain College during the summer of 1948. It was one of his first great all-over paintings, marking a turning point in his style.
Black Mountain College closed in 1957. It is now the site of Camp Rockmont for Boys. But all is not lost: you can visit the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center in Asheville, NC. I've got it on the itinerary!
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