| Asheville, N.C.—Modernist Design at Black Mountain College will feature works of design from the Asheville Art Museum’s Collection by Black Mountain College artists including Anni Albers, Josef Albers, A. Lawrence Kocher, Buckminster Fuller, Karen Karnes, Robert Turner, Mary “Molly” Gregory, Ruth Asawa, Albert Lanier, Mim Sihvonen, and more. The exhibition will be on view in the Museum’s Explore Asheville Exhibition Hall from October 22, 2021 through January 24, 2022.
The experiment known as Black Mountain College (BMC) began in 1933 in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina. The country was in the midst of the Great Depression and headed towards World War II; budgets were low, but creativity was high. When Josef & Anni Albers emigrated from Germany to the United States, they left the Bauhaus school of art and design behind but brought with them their modern aesthetic and design prowess. As faculty leaders at BMC, they attracted well known architects like A. Lawrence Kocher and Buckminster Fuller, among others, to teach architecture and design.
Perhaps most progressive of their actions was to hire a woman, Mary “Molly” Gregory, to head the furniture workshop. An openness to creativity and a smart resourcefulness—on the part of both faculty and students (like Ruth Asawa, Albert Lanier, and Mim Sihvonen)—meant an artistic output of groundbreaking designs including architecture, furniture, ceramics, textiles, and more that has yet to be fully assessed. This exhibition highlights the Asheville Art Museum’s collection of design from BMC, like the rarely seen Gregory furniture, and situates it in the context of its influences and surroundings at BMC.
“This exhibition combines artworks from the Museum’s Collection and on loan to explore a particular aspect of Black Mountain College that hasn’t been considered in depth: its design,” says Asheville Art Museum’s Associate Curator Whitney Richardson. “From the chairs used at the Blue Ridge Assembly to the architecture built at the Lake Eden Campus, the story of the design elements utilized by the faculty and students, and what they created within those contexts and environments, helps us look back at this place and time to proclaim BMC’s importance in the historical timeline of design. The aspect of this exhibition that excites me the most is displaying all of the Museum’s Molly Gregory furniture together for the first time since the Museum acquired it in 2017. Gregory’s ability to instruct BMC students on how to make their own furniture—mixed with her resourcefulness in using what the inadequately funded college could provide and the production of simple, modernistic furniture that has stood the test of time—astounds me.”
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