Black Mountain College: influences, peers and legacy

Every connection with its receipt

Black Mountain College (1933–1957) was an experiment in Deweyan education where art-making sat at the center of the curriculum, and where Bauhaus exiles, poets, composers and dancers improvised an American avant-garde in rural North Carolina. This mix traces what the college imported, what it invented on the Blue Ridge, and the artists who carried its pedagogy out into postwar culture.

The Kynda mix for Black Mountain College

• Key Influence · Bauhaus Manifesto and Program of the Staatliche Bauhaus by Walter Gropius (1919). When the Nazis forced the Bauhaus to close in 1933, Philip Johnson recommended Josef Albers to the brand-new Black Mountain College; Albers and his wife Anni arrived that autumn knowing almost no English. Gropius's founding program — unity of craft and art, the preliminary course, workshop learning by doing — became the structural model for BMC's art instruction, and Gropius himself later advised on the college's building plans for the Lake Eden campus.||
• Influencia Obscura · Spectodrama by Xanti Schawinsky (1936). Schawinsky, a Bauhaus stage-workshop veteran recruited to Black Mountain in 1936, staged Spectodrama and Danse Macabre there: total-theater studies using light, masks, color and moving bodies with students as performers. Largely forgotten beside Cage's 1952 event, these productions established the college's habit of collective, non-narrative performance and are the direct European ancestor of what later became known as happenings.||
• Local Roots · Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe (1929). Wolfe's autobiographical novel maps Asheville, fifteen miles from the college, as Altamont — the boarding-house South whose provincial scrutiny the BMC community both relied on and unsettled. The college rented the Blue Ridge Assembly grounds and later built at Lake Eden in exactly this landscape; local suspicion of its nude bathing, integration and foreign faculty is unintelligible without Wolfe's portrait of the mountain town.||
• Beyond the Medium · Art as Experience by John Dewey (1934). Dewey's philosophy was the college's charter: founder John Andrew Rice built BMC around learning as lived experience, with art at the curriculum's center rather than its margin. Dewey visited the campus more than once in the 1930s and served on its advisory council. Art as Experience, published a year after the founding, supplies the argument for why a liberal-arts college would make painting and weaving the core discipline.||
• Peer · Vision in Motion by László Moholy-Nagy (1947). Moholy-Nagy founded the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937, four years after BMC opened, making it the college's closest American counterpart: another Bauhaus master transplanting workshop pedagogy to a country with no modernist art-school tradition. Vision in Motion is his summation of that teaching — light, materials, typography, total design — and the institutional path not taken by Black Mountain, which stayed small, rural and degreeless.||
• Key Collaborator · Interaction of Color by Josef Albers (1963). Albers ran the art program from 1933 to 1949 and shaped nearly every visual artist who passed through, from Rauschenberg to Kenneth Noland to Ruth Asawa, before leaving for Yale. Interaction of Color codifies the course he developed at Black Mountain: color studied experimentally through paper exercises, perception proved unreliable, the student made to discover rather than be told. It remains the most widely used art-teaching text of the century.||
• Legacy · Erased de Kooning Drawing by Robert Rauschenberg (1953). Rauschenberg studied under Albers at Black Mountain from 1948, later describing him as a beautiful teacher and an impossible person and crediting him with teaching how to look. The White Paintings hung above the 1952 event, and the collaborative habits formed there with Cage and Cunningham shaped decades of work. The erased drawing extends the college's lesson that a decision, cleanly executed, can constitute an artwork.||

What influenced Black Mountain College

• John Dewey. The college's educational approach drew on Dewey's philosophy. (also via Art as Experience) “The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey 's educational philosophy, which emphasized holistic learning and the study of art as central to a liberal arts education .” (Wikipedia)
• Pedagogical Sketchbook by Paul Klee (1925). Pedagogical Sketchbook (Paul Klee) — titan for Black Mountain College “Albers's work in Dessau included designing furniture and working with glass, collaborating with established artists like Paul Klee.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Art as Experience by John Dewey (1934). Art as Experience (John Dewey) — culture for Black Mountain College “The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey's educational philosophy, which emphasized holistic learning and the study of art as central to a liberal arts education.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Trois Morceaux en forme de poire by Erik Satie (1903). Trois morceaux en forme de poire (Erik Satie) — culture for Black Mountain College “The piece is a chance-controlled reworking of Erik Satie's Socrate, and, as both listeners and Cage himself noted, openly sympathetic to its source.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Bauhaus Manifesto and Program of the Staatliche Bauhaus by Walter Gropius (1919). Bauhaus Manifesto and Program of the Staatliche Bauhaus (Walter Gropius) — titan for Black Mountain College “Many of the college's faculty and students were or would go on to become highly influential in the arts, including Josef and Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, John Cage, Robert Creeley, Merce Cunningham, Max Dehn, Elaine de Kooning, Willem de Koo…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Spectodrama by Xanti Schawinsky (1936). Spectodrama (Xanti Schawinsky) — ghost for Black Mountain College “== Move to the US == Schawinsky was invited to Black Mountain College in the US in 1936 by Josef Albers and the Museum of Modern Art in New York exhibited his work.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Essays in Zen Buddhism by D. T. Suzuki (1927). Essays in Zen Buddhism (D. T. Suzuki) — culture for Black Mountain College (gutenberg.org)
• Point and Line to Plane by Wassily Kandinsky (1926). Point and Line to Plane (Wassily Kandinsky) — titan for Black Mountain College
• Das Triadische Ballett by Oskar Schlemmer (1922). Das Triadische Ballett (Oskar Schlemmer) — ghost for Black Mountain College

Peers and kindred spirits

• John Cage. Cage taught at Black Mountain College. “Cage taught at Black Mountain College in the summers of 1948 and 1952 and was in residence during the summer of 1953.” (BMC Yearbook)
• Josef Albers. Josef Albers ran the college's art program. (also via Interaction of Color) “Josef Albers, who was selected to run the art program, and his wife Anni Albers , who taught weaving and textile design.” (Wikipedia)
• Anni Albers. Anni Albers taught weaving and textile design at the college. (also via On Weaving) “Josef Albers, who was selected to run the art program, and his wife Anni Albers , who taught weaving and textile design.” (Wikipedia)
• Robert Creeley. Creeley is described as Olson's colleague and student at the college. (also via For Love: Poems 1950–1960) “Olson founded The Black Mountain Review in 1954 [ 7 ] and, together with his colleague and student Robert Creeley , developed the poetic school of Black Mountain poets .” (Wikipedia)
• Ruth Asawa. Asawa is listed as an alumna. (also via Untitled (hanging wire sculpture)) “Alumni [ edit ] Hazel Larsen Archer [ 32 ] Ruth Asawa [ 33 ] Jane Mayhall [ 34 ] John Wieners [ 35 ] Jonathan Williams [ 36 ]” (Wikipedia)
• John Andrew Rice. Rice is identified as a founder of the college. “Black Mountain College was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice , Theodore Dreier, Frederick Georgia, and Ralph Lounsbury, who were dismissed as faculty from Rollins College” (Wikipedia)
• Theodore Dreier. Dreier is identified as a founder of the college. “Black Mountain College was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice , Theodore Dreier, Frederick Georgia, and Ralph Lounsbury, who were dismissed as faculty from Rollins College” (Wikipedia)
• Frederick Georgia. Georgia is identified as a founder of the college. “Black Mountain College was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice , Theodore Dreier, Frederick Georgia, and Ralph Lounsbury, who were dismissed as faculty from Rollins College” (Wikipedia)
• Ralph Lounsbury. Lounsbury is identified as a founder of the college. “Black Mountain College was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice , Theodore Dreier, Frederick Georgia, and Ralph Lounsbury, who were dismissed as faculty from Rollins College” (Wikipedia)
• Buckminster Fuller. Fuller is expressly identified as a faculty member. “it was here that the first large-scale geodesic dome was made by faculty member Buckminster Fuller and students, where Merce Cunningham formed his dance company” (Wikipedia)
• Merce Cunningham (1919). Cunningham is listed among the college's faculty and students. “Many of the college's faculty and students were or would go on to become highly influential in the arts, including Josef and Anni Albers , Ruth Asawa , John Cage , Robert Creeley , Merce Cunningham” (Wikipedia)
• Charles Olson. Olson served as rector of the college. “In the 1950s, the focus of the school shifted to the literary arts under the rectorship of Charles Olson .” (Wikipedia)
• Carol Brice. Brice is named as an instructor at the college. “Notable African-American instructors included Carol Brice and Roland Hayes during the 1945 Summer Music Institute; Percy H. Baker , hired on full-time in 1945” (Wikipedia)
• Roland Hayes (1887). Hayes is named as an instructor at the college. “Notable African-American instructors included Carol Brice and Roland Hayes during the 1945 Summer Music Institute; Percy H. Baker , hired on full-time in 1945” (Wikipedia)
• Percy H. Baker. Baker is named as a full-time instructor. “Notable African-American instructors included Carol Brice and Roland Hayes during the 1945 Summer Music Institute; Percy H. Baker , hired on full-time in 1945” (Wikipedia)
• Jacob Lawrence. Lawrence is included in the passage's list of college instructors. “Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight during the 1946 Summer Art Institute; and Mark Oakland Fax for the Spring 1946 quarter.” (Wikipedia)
• Gwendolyn Knight. Knight is included in the passage's list of college instructors. “Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight during the 1946 Summer Art Institute; and Mark Oakland Fax for the Spring 1946 quarter.” (Wikipedia)
• Mark Oakland Fax. Fax is included in the passage's list of college instructors. “Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight during the 1946 Summer Art Institute; and Mark Oakland Fax for the Spring 1946 quarter.” (Wikipedia)
• John Wieners. Wieners is listed as an alumnus. “Alumni [ edit ] Hazel Larsen Archer [ 32 ] Ruth Asawa [ 33 ] Jane Mayhall [ 34 ] John Wieners [ 35 ] Jonathan Williams [ 36 ]” (Wikipedia)
• Jonathan Williams. Williams is listed as an alumnus. “Alumni [ edit ] Hazel Larsen Archer [ 32 ] Ruth Asawa [ 33 ] Jane Mayhall [ 34 ] John Wieners [ 35 ] Jonathan Williams [ 36 ]” (Wikipedia)
• Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe (1929). Look Homeward, Angel (Thomas Wolfe) — geography for Black Mountain College (openlibrary.org)
• Interaction of Color by Josef Albers (1963). Interaction of Color (Josef Albers) — collaborator for Black Mountain College “While Josef Albers led the school, the only two requirements were a course on materials and form taught by Albers and a course on Plato.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• On Weaving by Anni Albers (1965). On Weaving (Anni Albers) — collaborator for Black Mountain College “Many of the college's faculty and students were or would go on to become highly influential in the arts, including Josef and Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, John Cage, Robert Creeley, Merce Cunningham, Max Dehn, Elaine de Kooning, Willem de Koo…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Centering in Pottery, Poetry, and the Person by M. C. Richards (1964). Centering in Pottery, Poetry, and the Person (M. C. Richards) — collaborator for Black Mountain College “Educated at Reed College, in Portland, Oregon, and at the University of California at Berkeley, she taught English at the Central Washington College of Education and the University of Chicago, but in 1945 became a faculty member of the e…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Appalachian Photographs of Doris Ulmann by Doris Ulmann (1971). The Appalachian Photographs of Doris Ulmann (Doris Ulmann) — geography for Black Mountain College
• Ballads, Banjo Tunes and Sacred Songs of Western North Carolina by Bascom Lamar Lunsford (1956). Ballads, Banjo Tunes and Sacred Songs of Western North Carolina (Bascom Lamar Lunsford) — geography for Black Mountain College
• Vision in Motion by László Moholy-Nagy (1947). Vision in Motion (László Moholy-Nagy) — peer for Black Mountain College
• Search for the Real and Other Essays by Hans Hofmann (1948). Search for the Real and Other Essays (Hans Hofmann) — peer for Black Mountain College
• Foundations of Modern Art by Amédée Ozenfant (1928). Foundations of Modern Art (Amédée Ozenfant) — peer for Black Mountain College

Who Black Mountain College influenced

• Erased de Kooning Drawing by Robert Rauschenberg (1953). Erased de Kooning Drawing (Robert Rauschenberg) — legacy for Black Mountain College “Many of the college's faculty and students were or would go on to become highly influential in the arts, including Josef and Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, John Cage, Robert Creeley, Merce Cunningham, Max Dehn, Elaine de Kooning, Willem de Koo…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–1957. The exhibition took Black Mountain College as its subject. “Black Mountain College was the subject of the museum exhibition Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–1957, which opened at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston on October 10, 2015.” (Wikipedia)
• The Longest Ride. Sparks's novel features Black Mountain College. “Black Mountain College was featured in Nicholas Sparks ' novel, The Longest Ride (2013) and the 2015 movie adaptation of the same name.” (Wikipedia)
• Untitled (hanging wire sculpture) by Ruth Asawa (1955). Untitled (hanging wire sculpture) (Ruth Asawa) — legacy for Black Mountain College “Many of the college's faculty and students were or would go on to become highly influential in the arts, including Josef and Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, John Cage, Robert Creeley, Merce Cunningham, Max Dehn, Elaine de Kooning, Willem de Koo…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• For Love: Poems 1950–1960 by Robert Creeley (1962). For Love: Poems 1950–1960 (Robert Creeley) — legacy for Black Mountain College “Many of the college's faculty and students were or would go on to become highly influential in the arts, including Josef and Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, John Cage, Robert Creeley, Merce Cunningham, Max Dehn, Elaine de Kooning, Willem de Koo…” (en.wikipedia.org)