Black Mountain College

Black Mountain College

"The curriculum was divided into the Junior and Senior Divisions with all entering students being placed in the lower division regardless of previous education. Entrance into the Senior Division was not dependent on the number of courses completed successfully but rather was determined by the results of comprehensive oral and written examinations as well as the achievement record of the student. Graduation from the college was on the same basis, with professors from other institutions conducting the examinations. There were no required courses but each student prepared with his advisor a plan of work and was expected to complete a well-rounded course of study. Classes, which were a combination of recitations, lectures, tutorials, and seminars, met at the discretion of the teacher and attendance was voluntary." -Information Courtesy of North Carolina State Archives Black Mountain College Papers

By the forties, Black Mountain's faculty included some of the greatest artists and thinkers of its time: Walter Gropius, Jacob Lawrence, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, John Cage, Alfred Kazin, Merce Cunningham, and Paul Goodman. Buckminster Fuller came and built his first Geodesic Dome, Charles Olson produced the Projective Verse, and some of the first performance art in the U.S. 1

Jean Varda, the Greek-born artist, first arrived to teach in a Model A convertible he’d painted magenta and orange and driven cross-country on three spare tires. He tossed packages of loudly colored Rit dye in a washing machine to dye the shirts he wore open to the waist. In contrast to Josef Albers, to whom students "prayed, knelt beseechingly before the great god of capital A-R-T," Varda was a breath of fresh and flamboyant air. " writes Emma Mary Harris in her book, "The Arts at Black Mountain College" MIT Press.

Jean Varda taught dance, and possibly art as well, at the sumer arts session of 1946 at Black Mountain College, an alternative educational school headed by Joseph Albers. The college basically had no set curriculum, no grades and no tests, but its Board of Directors included William Carlos Williams and Albert Einstein. Black Mountain had was the ideal of American experimental education.

LEE HALL, BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE
Photo Courtesy of North Carolina State Archives

At its core was the assumption that a strong liberal and fine arts education must happen simultaneously inside and outside the classroom. Combining communal living with an informal class structure, Black Mountain created an environment conducive to the interdisciplinary work that was to revolutionize the arts and sciences of its time.
It was a hub of American cultural production. 2

In 1953, as many of the students and faculty left for San Francisco and New York, those still at Black Mountain saw the shift in interest and knew the school had run its course. Black Mountain had existed on its own terms, and on its own terms had succeeded in expanding the possibilities of American education. Realizing that they had essentially achieved their goals, they closed their doors forever. 3

From the Jacob Lawrence Website:
Jacob Lawrence teaches in the summer session at Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina, at the invitation of Josef Albers. His wife Gwendolyn Knight Lawrance, an accomplished figurative artist, accompanies him.

Albers hires a private train car to transport the Lawrences to and from Asheville so they need not move to the "colored" section of the train at the Mason-Dixon Line. The Lawrences never leave the school's campus during their ten-week stay.