Black mountain college

DEFINITION

Active from 1933 to 1957 in the mountains of North Carolina near Asheville, the school was a totally unique American college because of the commitment to art study and practice as the underpinning of liberal arts education, and also to democratic, communal living. Intermixed, faculty and students shared in the practical daily life activities of growing food, cooking, cleaning, building construction, etc. A founding leader was John Rice, a scholar and rebel from Rollins College, who was dedicated to John Dewey's principles of progressive education. Its founding date coincided with the defection of many German intellectuals from the Hitler regime, and of the closing of the Bauhaus (see Glossary listing) because of Nazi persecution. Many of these defectors including Josef Albers and his wife Annie Albers became Black Mountain teachers as did Jose De Creeft, Willem de Kooning, Jack Tworkov and Peter Voulkos. Among student enrollees were John Angus Chamberlain, Cy Twombly, Ruth Asawa, and Robert Rauschenberg. Many associated with the school were mavericks such as the previously listed as well as John Cage, Jacob Lawrence, Elaine de Kooning, Dorothea Rockburne and Ben Shahn. Source: ???Black Mountain College: An Introduction???, http://blackmountaincollege.org/content/view/12/52/; AskART database