Black Mountain College
Encyclopedia
Black Mountain College, a school founded in 1933 in Black Mountain, North Carolina
, was a new kind of college in the United States in which the study of art was seen to be central to a liberal arts education
, and in which John Dewey
's principles of education played a major role. Many of the school's students and faculty were influential in the arts or other fields, or went on to become influential. Although notable even during its short life, the school closed in 1957 after only 24 years.
Founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice
, Theodore Dreier, and other former faculty members of Rollins College
, Black Mountain was experimental by nature and committed to an interdisciplinary approach, attracting a faculty that included many of America's leading visual artists, composers, poets, and designers, like Buckminster Fuller
, who popularized and named the geodesic dome
.
Operating in a relatively isolated rural location with little budget, Black Mountain College inculcated an informal and collaborative spirit and over its lifetime attracted a venerable roster of instructors. Some of the innovations, relationships, and unexpected connections formed at Black Mountain would prove to have a lasting influence on the postwar American art scene, high culture, and eventually pop culture. Buckminster Fuller
met student Kenneth Snelson
at Black Mountain, and the result was the first geodesic dome
(improvised out of slats in the school's back yard); Merce Cunningham
formed his dance company; and John Cage
staged his first happening
(the term itself is traceable to Cage's student Allan Kaprow
, who applied it later to such events).
Not a haphazardly conceived venture, Black Mountain College was a consciously directed liberal arts
school that grew out of the progressive education movement. In its day it was a unique educational experiment for the artists and writers who conducted it, and as such an important incubator for the American avant garde. Black Mountain proved to be an important precursor to and prototype for many of the alternative colleges of today ranging from Naropa University
, the University of California, Santa Cruz
, and Marlboro College
to Evergreen State College, Bennington College
, Shimer College
, Prescott College
, Goddard College
, and New College of Florida
, among others, including Warren Wilson College
located just minutes down the road from where Black Mountain College was located.
For the first eight years, the college rented the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly buildings south of Black Mountain town
. In 1941, it moved across the valley to its own campus at Lake Eden where it remained until its closing in 1956. The property was later purchased and converted to an ecumenical Christian boys' residential summer camp (Camp Rockmont), which later became a long-time location of the Black Mountain Festival and the Lake Eden Arts Festival
. A number of the original structures are still in use as lodgings or administrative facilities.
Josef
and Anni Albers
,
Eric Bentley
,
Ilya Bolotowsky
,
Josef Breitenbach
,
John Cage
,
Harry Callahan,
Mary Callery
,
Robert Creeley
,
Merce Cunningham
,
Max Dehn
,
Willem de Kooning
,
Robert Duncan
,
Buckminster Fuller
,
Walter Gropius
,
Lou Harrison
,
Alfred Kazin
,
Franz Kline
,
Jacob Lawrence
,
Richard Lippold
,
Charles Olson
,
M. C. Richards
,
Albert William Levi,
Xanti Schawinsky,
Ben Shahn
,
Arthur Siegel,
Aaron Siskind
,
Theodoros Stamos
,
Jack Tworkov
,
Robert Motherwell
,
Emerson Woelffer
, and
William R. Wunsch.
Guest lecturers included Albert Einstein
, Clement Greenberg
, Bernard Rudofsky
, Richard Lippold
and William Carlos Williams
.
Ceramic artists Peter Voulkos
and Robert C. Turner
taught there as well.
The college ran summer institutes from 1944 till its closing in 1956.
) were drawn to the school through the years, most notably Charles Olson
, Robert Duncan
, Denise Levertov
, Jonathan Williams
, Ed Dorn
, and Robert Creeley
. Creeley was hired to teach and to edit the Black Mountain Review in 1955, and when he left two years later for San Francisco, he became the link between the Black Mountain poets and the poets of the San Francisco Renaissance
. Through Allen Ginsberg
, a link with the Beat generation
writers of Greenwich Village
was initiated.
Black Mountain, North Carolina
Black Mountain is a town in Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 7,511 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Asheville Metropolitan Statistical Area. The town is named for the Black Mountain range of the Blue Ridge range in the Southern Appalachians.-History:Black...
, was a new kind of college in the United States in which the study of art was seen to be central to a liberal arts education
Liberal arts
The term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...
, and in which John Dewey
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
's principles of education played a major role. Many of the school's students and faculty were influential in the arts or other fields, or went on to become influential. Although notable even during its short life, the school closed in 1957 after only 24 years.
History
John Andrew Rice
John Andrew Rice, Jr. was the founder and first rector of Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina. During his time there, he introduced many unique methods of education which had not been implemented in any other experimental institution, attracting many important artists as...
, Theodore Dreier, and other former faculty members of Rollins College
Rollins College
Rollins College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Winter Park, Florida , along the shores of Lake Virginia....
, Black Mountain was experimental by nature and committed to an interdisciplinary approach, attracting a faculty that included many of America's leading visual artists, composers, poets, and designers, like Buckminster Fuller
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
, who popularized and named the geodesic dome
Geodesic dome
A geodesic dome is a spherical or partial-spherical shell structure or lattice shell based on a network of great circles on the surface of a sphere. The geodesics intersect to form triangular elements that have local triangular rigidity and also distribute the stress across the structure. When...
.
Operating in a relatively isolated rural location with little budget, Black Mountain College inculcated an informal and collaborative spirit and over its lifetime attracted a venerable roster of instructors. Some of the innovations, relationships, and unexpected connections formed at Black Mountain would prove to have a lasting influence on the postwar American art scene, high culture, and eventually pop culture. Buckminster Fuller
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
met student Kenneth Snelson
Kenneth Snelson
Kenneth Snelson is a contemporary sculptor and photographer. His sculptural works are composed of flexible and rigid components arranged according to the idea of 'tensegrity', although Snelson does not use the term....
at Black Mountain, and the result was the first geodesic dome
Geodesic dome
A geodesic dome is a spherical or partial-spherical shell structure or lattice shell based on a network of great circles on the surface of a sphere. The geodesics intersect to form triangular elements that have local triangular rigidity and also distribute the stress across the structure. When...
(improvised out of slats in the school's back yard); Merce Cunningham
Merce Cunningham
Mercier "Merce" Philip Cunningham was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of the American avant-garde for more than 50 years. Throughout much of his life, Cunningham was considered one of the greatest creative forces in American dance...
formed his dance company; and John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
staged his first happening
Happening
A happening is a performance, event or situation meant to be considered art, usually as performance art. Happenings take place anywhere , are often multi-disciplinary, with a nonlinear narrative and the active participation of the audience...
(the term itself is traceable to Cage's student Allan Kaprow
Allan Kaprow
Allan Kaprow was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the "Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as their theory. His Happenings - some 200 of them - evolved over the years...
, who applied it later to such events).
Not a haphazardly conceived venture, Black Mountain College was a consciously directed liberal arts
Liberal arts
The term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...
school that grew out of the progressive education movement. In its day it was a unique educational experiment for the artists and writers who conducted it, and as such an important incubator for the American avant garde. Black Mountain proved to be an important precursor to and prototype for many of the alternative colleges of today ranging from Naropa University
Naropa University
Naropa University is a private American liberal arts university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1974 by Tibetan Buddhist teacher and Oxford University scholar Chögyam Trungpa, it is named for the eleventh-century Indian Buddhist sage Naropa, an abbot of Nalanda.Naropa describes itself as...
, the University of California, Santa Cruz
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz, also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a public, collegiate university; one of ten campuses in the University of California...
, and Marlboro College
Marlboro College
Marlboro College is a small, coeducational, alternative liberal-arts college in Marlboro, Vermont, USA.-History:Marlboro College was founded in 1946 by Walter Hendricks for returning World War II veterans on Potash Hill in Marlboro, Vermont. The school's operation was initially financed using money...
to Evergreen State College, Bennington College
Bennington College
Bennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...
, Shimer College
Shimer College
Shimer College is a very small, private, undergraduate liberal arts college in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. Founded by Frances Wood Shimer in 1853 in the frontier town of Mt. Carroll, Illinois, it was a women's school for most of its first century. It joined with the University of...
, Prescott College
Prescott College
Prescott College is a private liberal arts college in Prescott, Arizona, founded in 1966. It is a non-profit organization which has an undergraduate body of roughly 800 students, and an average student to faculty ratio of 7:1 in on-campus classrooms...
, Goddard College
Goddard College
Goddard College is a private, liberal arts college located in Plainfield, Vermont, offering undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Goddard College currently operates on an intensive low-residency model...
, and New College of Florida
New College of Florida
New College of Florida is a public liberal arts college located in Sarasota, Florida. It was founded originally as a private institution and is now an autonomous honors college of the State University System of Florida.-History:...
, among others, including Warren Wilson College
Warren Wilson College
Warren Wilson College is a private four-year work college in the Swannanoa Valley, North Carolina, United States near Asheville. It is known for its curriculum of work, academics, and service, called "the Triad," which requires every student to work an on-campus job, perform at least one hundred...
located just minutes down the road from where Black Mountain College was located.
For the first eight years, the college rented the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly buildings south of Black Mountain town
Black Mountain, North Carolina
Black Mountain is a town in Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 7,511 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Asheville Metropolitan Statistical Area. The town is named for the Black Mountain range of the Blue Ridge range in the Southern Appalachians.-History:Black...
. In 1941, it moved across the valley to its own campus at Lake Eden where it remained until its closing in 1956. The property was later purchased and converted to an ecumenical Christian boys' residential summer camp (Camp Rockmont), which later became a long-time location of the Black Mountain Festival and the Lake Eden Arts Festival
Lake Eden Arts Festival
Lake Eden Arts Festival is a non-profit organization established to build community and enrich lives through the arts, locally and globally, through festivals, events, mentoring, and educational programs....
. A number of the original structures are still in use as lodgings or administrative facilities.
Faculty and alumni
Among those who taught there in the 1940s and 1950s were:Josef
Josef Albers
Josef Albers was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the 20th century....
and Anni Albers
Anni Albers
Annelise Albers was a German-American textile artist and printmaker. She is perhaps the best known textile artist of the 20th century.-Life:...
,
Eric Bentley
Eric Bentley
Eric Bentley is a critic, playwright, singer, editor and translator. He became an American citizen in 1948, and currently lives in New York City...
,
Ilya Bolotowsky
Ilya Bolotowsky
Ilya Bolotowsky was a leading early 20th-century painter in abstract styles in New York City. His work, a search for philosophical order through visual expression, embraced cubism and geometric abstraction and was much influenced by Dutch painter Piet Mondrian.Born to Jewish parents in St...
,
Josef Breitenbach
Josef Breitenbach
Josef Breitenbach was a photographer whose manipulated images and stark photographs were part of the Surrealistic movement.-Early life:...
,
John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
,
Harry Callahan,
Mary Callery
Mary Callery
Mary Callery was an American artist known for her Modern and Abstract Expressionist sculpture. She was part of the New York School art movement of the 1940s, '50s and '60s....
,
Robert Creeley
Robert Creeley
Robert Creeley was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school's. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. He served as the Samuel P...
,
Merce Cunningham
Merce Cunningham
Mercier "Merce" Philip Cunningham was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of the American avant-garde for more than 50 years. Throughout much of his life, Cunningham was considered one of the greatest creative forces in American dance...
,
Max Dehn
Max Dehn
Max Dehn was a German American mathematician and a student of David Hilbert. He is most famous for his work in geometry, topology and geometric group theory...
,
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
,
Robert Duncan
Robert Duncan (poet)
Robert Duncan was an American poet and a student of H.D. and the Western esoteric tradition who spent most of his career in and around San Francisco. Though associated with any number of literary traditions and schools, Duncan is often identified with the poets of the New American Poetry and Black...
,
Buckminster Fuller
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
,
Walter Gropius
Walter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture....
,
Lou Harrison
Lou Harrison
Lou Silver Harrison was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. P. H. Notoprojo Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. P. H. Notoprojo Lou Silver Harrison...
,
Alfred Kazin
Alfred Kazin
Alfred Kazin was an American writer and literary critic, many of whose writings depicted the immigrant experience in early twentieth century America....
,
Franz Kline
Franz Kline
Franz Jozef Kline was an American painter mainly associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement centered around New York in the 1940s and 1950s. He was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and attended Girard College, an academy in Philadelphia for fatherless boys...
,
Jacob Lawrence
Jacob Lawrence
Jacob Lawrence was an American painter; he was married to fellow artist Gwendolyn Knight. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism", though by his own account the primary influence was not so much French art as the shapes and colors of Harlem.Lawrence is among the best-known twentieth...
,
Richard Lippold
Richard Lippold
Richard Lippold was an American sculptor, known for his geometric constructions using wire as a medium....
,
Charles Olson
Charles Olson
Charles Olson , was a second generation American modernist poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York School, the Black Mountain School, the Beat poets, and the San Francisco Renaissance...
,
M. C. Richards
M. C. Richards
Mary Caroline Richards was a poet, potter, and writer best-known for her book Centering in Pottery, Poetry and the Person....
,
Albert William Levi,
Xanti Schawinsky,
Ben Shahn
Ben Shahn
Ben Shahn was a Lithuanian-born American artist. He is best known for his works of social realism, his left-wing political views, and his series of lectures published as The Shape of Content.-Biography:...
,
Arthur Siegel,
Aaron Siskind
Aaron Siskind
Aaron Siskind was an American abstract expressionist photographer. In his biography he wrote that he began his foray into photography when he received a camera for a wedding gift and began taking pictures on his honeymoon. He quickly realized the artistic potential this offered...
,
Theodoros Stamos
Theodoros Stamos
Theodoros Stamos , was a Greek American artist. He is one of the youngest painters of the original group of abstract expressionist painters , which included Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko...
,
Jack Tworkov
Jack Tworkov
Jack Tworkov was a Polish born American abstract expressionist painter.He was born in Biała Podlaska, Russian Empire and immigrated to the United States in 1913 with his mother and younger sister who would later become known as Janice Biala...
,
Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell American painter, printmaker and editor. He was one of the youngest of the New York School , which also included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Philip Guston....
,
Emerson Woelffer
Emerson Woelffer
Emerson Woelffer was a prominent abstract expressionism artist and painter born in Chicago. He studied Education at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago between 1935 and 1937. In 1938 he joined the WPA Arts Program. In 1949 he taught at Black Mountain College at the request of Buckminster...
, and
William R. Wunsch.
Guest lecturers included Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
, Clement Greenberg
Clement Greenberg
Clement Greenberg was an American essayist known mainly as an influential visual art critic closely associated with American Modern art of the mid-20th century...
, Bernard Rudofsky
Bernard Rudofsky
Bernard Rudofsky was an Moravian-born American writer, architect, collector, teacher, designer, and social historian....
, Richard Lippold
Richard Lippold
Richard Lippold was an American sculptor, known for his geometric constructions using wire as a medium....
and William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
.
Ceramic artists Peter Voulkos
Peter Voulkos
Peter Voulkos popular name of Panagiotis Voulkos, was an American artist of Greek descent. He is known for his Abstract Expressionist ceramic sculptures, which crossed the traditional divide between ceramic crafts and fine art....
and Robert C. Turner
Robert C. Turner
Robert Chapman Turner was an American potter known for his functional pottery, sculptural vessels and inspired teaching....
taught there as well.
Notable alumni
- Ruth AsawaRuth AsawaRuth Asawa is a Japanese American sculptor. In San Francisco, she has been called the "fountain lady" for her works that include the mermaid fountain at Ghirardelli Square...
- (faculty as well) - Harrison BegayHarrison BegayHarrison Begay , is a renowned Navajo painter, perhaps the most famous of his generation. Begay specializes in watercolors and silkscreen prints. He is the oldest living former student of Dorothy Dunn at the Santa Fe Indian School...
, painter - Lyle Bongé
- Nicholas Cernovich
- John Chamberlain - (faculty as well)
- Robert CreeleyRobert CreeleyRobert Creeley was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school's. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. He served as the Samuel P...
- Fielding DawsonFielding DawsonFielding Dawson was a beat-era author of short stories and novels, a student of the Black Mountain College. He was also a painter & collagist whose works were seen in several books of poetry & many literary magazines....
- Elaine de KooningElaine de KooningElaine de Kooning was an Abstract Expressionist, Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era and editorial associate for Art News magazine...
, - Ed DornEd DornEdward Merton Dorn was an American poet and teacher often associated with the Black Mountain poets. His most famous work is Gunslinger.-Overview:...
- Jorge Fick
- Joseph Fiore
- James Leo HerlihyJames Leo HerlihyJames Leo Herlihy was an American novelist, playwright and actor.Born into a working class family in Detroit, Michigan, Herlihy is known for his novels Midnight Cowboy and All Fall Down and his play Blue Denim, all of which were adapted for cinema...
- Ray JohnsonRay JohnsonRaymond Edward Johnson , known primarily as a collagist and correspondence artist, was a seminal figure in the history of Neo-Dada and early Pop art...
- Karen KarnesKaren KarnesKaren Karnes is an American ceramist, best known for her earth-toned stoneware ceramics. She was born in 1925 in New York City, United States, where she attended art schools for children. Her garment worker parents were Russian and Polish immigrants. Karen was influenced in many ways by her...
- Basil King
- Gwendolyn KnightGwendolyn KnightGwendolyn Clarine Knight was an African American artist from Barbados, in the West Indies.Gwendolyn Knight painted throughout her life, but did not start seriously exhibiting her work until the 1970s. Her first retrospective when she was nearly eighty years old...
- Hazel Larson
- Ingeborg Lauterstein
- Jane MayhallJane MayhallJane Mayhall Katz was an American poet whose writing first received attention later in life, and was influenced by her transition from her youth in Kentucky to the hustle and bustle of life in New York City and her grief over the death of her husband...
(1918–2009), poet. - Peter NemenyiPeter NemenyiPeter Björn Nemenyi was an American statistician and civil-rights activist of Jewish Hungarian descent. He was the son of Paul Nemenyi one of the most eminent hydrologists of the twentieth century...
- Robert De Niro, Sr.Robert De Niro, Sr.Robert Henry De Niro, Sr. was an American abstract expressionist painter and the father of actor Robert De Niro.-Life and career:...
- Kenneth NolandKenneth NolandKenneth Noland was an American abstract painter. He was one of the best-known American Color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was thought of as a minimalist painter. Noland helped establish the Washington Color School...
- H. Peter Oberlander
- Joel OppenheimerJoel OppenheimerJoel Lester Oppenheimer was an American poet associated with both the Black Mountain poets and the New York School. He was the first director of the St. Marks Poetry Project...
- Pat Passlof
- Arthur PennArthur PennArthur Hiller Penn was an American film director and producer with a career as a theater director as well. Penn amassed a critically acclaimed body of work throughout the 1960s and 1970s.-Early years:...
- Charles PerrowCharles PerrowCharles B. Perrow is an emeritus professor of sociology at Yale University and visiting professor at Stanford University. He is the author of several books and many articles on organizations, and is primarily concerned with the impact of large organizations on society.-Academic appointments:After...
- Robert RauschenbergRobert RauschenbergRobert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...
- Dorothea RockburneDorothea RockburneDorothea Rockburne is an abstract painter drawing inspiration primarily from her deep interest in mathematics and astronomy. In 1950 she moved to the United States to attend Black Mountain College, where she studied with mathematician Max Dehn, a lifelong influence on her work...
- Michael RumakerMichael RumakerMichael Rumaker is an American author , to Michael Joseph and Winifred Marvel Rumaker. He is a graduate of Black Mountain College and Columbia University ....
- Oli Sihvonen
- Kenneth SnelsonKenneth SnelsonKenneth Snelson is a contemporary sculptor and photographer. His sculptural works are composed of flexible and rigid components arranged according to the idea of 'tensegrity', although Snelson does not use the term....
- Claude Stoller
- Cy TwomblyCy TwomblyEdwin Parker "Cy" Twombly, Jr. was an American artist well known for his large-scale, freely scribbled, calligraphic-style graffiti paintings, on solid fields of mostly gray, tan, or off-white colors...
- John Urbain
- Elaine Schmitt Urbain
- Stan VanDerBeekStan VanderbeekStan Vanderbeek was an American experimental filmmaker.- Life :VanDerBeek studied art and architecture first at Cooper Union College in New York and then at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where he met architect Buckminster Fuller, composer John Cage, and choreographer Merce Cunningham...
- David Jacques WayDavid Jacques WayDavid Jacques Way was an American harpsichord maker.-Early life:Born in Elk Creek, Nebraska, Way was educated at Black Mountain College in North Carolina in its earliest days, where he gained his lifelong interest in graphic design and typography...
- Susan WeilSusan WeilSusan Weil is an American artist best known for her experimental three-dimensional paintings, which combine figurative illustration with explorations of movement and space. In the late 1940s Weil was involved in a relationship with Robert Rauschenberg...
- John WienersJohn WienersJohn Joseph Wieners was an American lyric poet.-Biography:Born in Milton, Massachusetts, Wieners attended St. Gregory Elementary School in Dorchester, Massachusetts and Boston College High School. From 1950 to 1954, he studied at Boston College, where he earned his A.B...
- Jonathan WilliamsJonathan Williams (poet)Jonathan Williams was an American poet, publisher, essayist, and photographer. He is known as the founder of The Jargon Society, which has published poetry, experimental fiction, photography, and folk art for more than fifty years...
- Vera B. Williams
- Judd WoldinJudd WoldinEdwin Judd Woldin was an American composer, most notable for his musical Raisin.-Biography:Edwin Judd Woldin was born in Somerville, New Jersey. At the age of eight, he began taking piano lessons. In high school, he was attracted to Jazz, and was even working professionally at the time.He attended...
The college ran summer institutes from 1944 till its closing in 1956.
Black Mountain poets
Various avant-garde poets (subsequently known as the Black Mountain poetsBlack Mountain poets
The Black Mountain poets, sometimes called projectivist poets, were a group of mid 20th century American avant-garde or postmodern poets centered on Black Mountain College.-Background:...
) were drawn to the school through the years, most notably Charles Olson
Charles Olson
Charles Olson , was a second generation American modernist poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York School, the Black Mountain School, the Beat poets, and the San Francisco Renaissance...
, Robert Duncan
Robert Duncan (poet)
Robert Duncan was an American poet and a student of H.D. and the Western esoteric tradition who spent most of his career in and around San Francisco. Though associated with any number of literary traditions and schools, Duncan is often identified with the poets of the New American Poetry and Black...
, Denise Levertov
Denise Levertov
-Early life and influences:Levertov was born and grew up in Ilford, Essex.Couzyn, Jeni Contemporary Women Poets. Bloodaxe, p74 Her mother, Beatrice Spooner-Jones Levertoff, came from a small mining village in North Wales...
, Jonathan Williams
Jonathan Williams (poet)
Jonathan Williams was an American poet, publisher, essayist, and photographer. He is known as the founder of The Jargon Society, which has published poetry, experimental fiction, photography, and folk art for more than fifty years...
, Ed Dorn
Ed Dorn
Edward Merton Dorn was an American poet and teacher often associated with the Black Mountain poets. His most famous work is Gunslinger.-Overview:...
, and Robert Creeley
Robert Creeley
Robert Creeley was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school's. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. He served as the Samuel P...
. Creeley was hired to teach and to edit the Black Mountain Review in 1955, and when he left two years later for San Francisco, he became the link between the Black Mountain poets and the poets of the San Francisco Renaissance
San Francisco Renaissance
The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco and which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetic avant-garde. However, others The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range...
. Through Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, a link with the Beat generation
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
writers of Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
was initiated.
External links
- Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
- http://www.blackmountainstudiesjournal.org
- The Black Mountain College Project
- Black Mountain College: Collections in the North Carolina State Archives
- Fully Awake: Black Mountain College Documentary the only documentary solely on Black Mountain College. The story of BMC is woven through interviews with students, professors and modern scholars with archival footage and photographs.
- Honoring the Mind's Eye article on Hazel Larsen Archer, a photographer who documented her years at the college in the 1940s and early '50s
- Bauhaus in America a documentary about the influence of the Bauhaus on America, including a segment on Black Mountain College with Anni Albers, Ted and Bobbi Dreier, et alia. produced and directed by Judith Pearlman, Cliofilm.
- Black Mountain College Celebration 75th Anniversary of Black Mountain College
- Asheville Art Museum
- Finding Aid for the Black Mountain College Collection at the University of North Carolina at GreensboroUniversity of North Carolina at GreensboroThe University of North Carolina at Greensboro , also known as UNC Greensboro, is a public university in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States and is a constituent institution of the University of North Carolina system. The university offers more than 100 undergraduate, 61 master's and 26...
- Finding Aid for Black Mountain College Publications at the University of North Carolina at GreensboroUniversity of North Carolina at GreensboroThe University of North Carolina at Greensboro , also known as UNC Greensboro, is a public university in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States and is a constituent institution of the University of North Carolina system. The university offers more than 100 undergraduate, 61 master's and 26...
- Asheville, North Carolina, a National Park Service Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary
- University of Connecticut special collections related to Black Mountain writers