Black Mountain College

From the time of its founding in 1933, Black Mountain College, located near Asheville, North Carolina, was known as one of the leading progressive schools of art in the United States. Experimental by nature and committed to an interdisciplinary approach, Black Mountain College attracted a faculty which included many of America's leading artists and poets. Among those who taught there in the 1940s were Josef and Anni Albers, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Lou Harrison, Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Buckminster Fuller, Walter Gropius, Franz Kline, Jacob Lawrence, Charles Olson, M. C. Richards, and Ben Shahn. Guest lecturers included Albert Einstein, Clement Greenberg, and William Carlos Williams.

Among the notable alumni of Black Mountain College are Robert Rauschenberg, Kenneth Noland, Ruth Asawa, and Kenneth Snelson. The college closed in 1956.