the black mountain college.

the black mountain college can be seen ‘as a crucial nexus for artistic, intellectual and even political activity’ in mid-century america. ‘artists, scholars, educators and curators are increasingly recognizing that its unique environment was essential to the flowering of mid-century american art and culture, a place where the avant-garde of europe and the united states came together and created something new.’ among these was the composer john cage who led many of the performances at the college. ‘josef albers, the great bauhaus teacher who fled nazi germany for the united states, arrived at the black mountain college as a professor in 1933, and was to send students like painters robert rauschenberg and cy twombly out into the fields and woods to gather rocks and leaves for their studies of color, material and abstract form. his wife, anni albers, who would later be the first textile artist to have a solo show at the museum of modern art in new york, ran the weaving workshop. willem de kooning taught at black mountain in 1948 while his wife, elaine, studied painting, before he returned to new york to found the fabled abstract expressionist hangout known as the club; drips of paint from that era are still visible on a former studio floor. and it was in one of the school’s meadows one day in 1949 that the visionary inventor buckminster fuller, there to direct the summer program, raised the first large-scale geodesic dome. in its heyday, black mountain was also known for mathematics, history and science: natasha goldowski, who worked on the manhattan project, later taught chemistry and physics there, and albert einstein visited in 1944 and subsequently became a member of its advisory council. wall street journal