From the Bauhaus to the Black Mountain
How the ideas of the German pioneer designers lived on in the woods of North Carolina
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It was something of a reincarnation. As the Bauhaus was being closed down in 1933 under the Nazis, a college was opening in the woods of North Carolina in the USA which was inspired by very similar ideas to those of the legendary pioneer designers in Germany. Just like the Bauhaus the idea of the Black Mountain College was to show young people the way to art – not with pressure or curriculum but with hip methods and pretty cool teachers.
Study for Homage to the Square: Still Remembered (1954-1956) by Josef AlbersMart, Museum of modern and contemporary art of Trento and Rovereto
Ex-Bauhaus teacher Josef Albers was the ideal choice to head this art college. He was a multi-talent who had studied at the Bauhaus and taught the legendary foundation course there. In 1933 he emigrated to the USA with his wife Anni (textile designer with Bauhaus diploma).
Untitled (Bauhauslers on the shore of the Elbe, including: Hinnerk Scheper, K. Wiegand, Ernst Neufert, Marcel Breuer, Herbert Bayer, Xanti Schawinsky, László Moholy-Nagy) (1921-05-21) by Irene Angela Bayer (née Hecht)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
The two of them brought other Bauhaus people to the campus in the woods – Xanti Schawinsky (looking at the camera here), was made Professor of Drawing and Colour Theory in 1936 and based on the ideas of the Bauhaus stage, founded ‘Stage Studies’ at the Black Mountain College.
Walter Gropius in front of his home in Dessau (1926/27) by unknownBauhaus Dessau Foundation
Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius taught under Albers as well ...
Feininger Family (1951-06) by Andreas FeiningerLIFE Photo Collection
... so did Lyonel Feininger (painter and Bauhaus master of the first hour) ...
10Th St. Artists (1956-12) by James BurkeLIFE Photo Collection
... and Willem de Kooning ...
Artist Elaine De Kooning by Alfred EisenstaedtLIFE Photo Collection
... and Elaine de Kooning (both pioneers of modern art) ...
LIFE Photo Collection
... as well as Richard Buckminster Fuller (architect, philosopher, writer) ...
LIFE Photo Collection
... Albert Einstein, and others.
Marcel Breuer (1950-08-08) by Walter SandersLIFE Photo Collection
Marcel Breuer (inventor of the cantilever chair at the Bauhaus) even designed with Gropius a new campus for the College, which was not built because, unfortunately, the money ran out.
Dead End Artist (1953-10) by Allan GrantLIFE Photo Collection
By the time the College had to close in 1956 it had been formative in creating some of the personalities without whom our world today would have been a bit more boring.
One of its graduates is Pop Art pioneer Robert Rauschenberg. Josef Albers was a very special influence on him, he said later. The teacher inveigled him into always doing “exactly the opposite” of what he taught. Either way, Albers’ method worked …
Black Mountain College – 'A School Like No Other' (2016)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
Text / Concept / Realisation: Cornelia Jeske
Editing: Astrid Alexander, Cornelia Jeske
Translation: Catherine Hales, Stephan Schmidt
© Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau
www.bauhaus-dessau.de
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