The Asheville Art Museum presented a trio of exhibitions in 2006-07 entitled Black Mountain College: An Exhibition Series to coincide with the 50^th anniversary of the college's closing in 1956/57.  Founded in 1933 near Asheville, NC, Black Mountain College was an important experiment in American higher education. A convergence of cultural nationalism, experimentation, idealism and international turmoil led to Black Mountain College's emergence as a generative force of 20^th century American culture.

This first exhibition in the series of three in 2006/07presented work by such notables as John Cage, Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Aaron Siskind, Robert Rauschenberg and others, many of whom became major figures in the international art world. For the many artists who taught at and attended Black Mountain College, Western North Carolina's picturesque and rural setting had a profound influence. It provided necessary distance from their everyday distractions and commercial pressures, which enabled them to experiment and forge new directions in their work.

This project was sponsored by the Asheville Savings Bank, the Friends of Mountain History, the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes a great nation deserves great art, the North Carolina Arts Council and the Seth Sprague Charitable and Educational Foundation. This exhibition was organized by the Asheville Art Museum with Consulting Curator Beth Venn and Eva Diaz.

Image Credits:

Elaine de Kooning,Black Mountain #6, 1948, Enamel on paper mounted on canvas,13.5 x 16.375 inches.  Collection of the Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, New York. Museum Purchase.

Jack Tworkov, House of the Sun Sketch, 1953, Oil on board,28.25 x 25.375 inches. Private collection, courtesy the Estate of Jack Tworkov and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York.