Black Mountain College

Black Mountain College (BMC) was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina, United States. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey's educational philosophy, which emphasized holistic learning and the study of art as central to a liberal arts education. Many of the college's faculty and students were or would go on to become highly influential in the arts, including Josef and Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, John Cage, Robert Creeley, Merce Cunningham, Max Dehn, Elaine de Kooning, Willem de Kooning, Buckminster Fuller, Walter Gropius, Ray Johnson, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Charles Olson, Robert Rauschenberg, M. C. Richards, Dorothea Rockburne, Michael Rumaker, Ben Shahn, Aaron Siskind, Cy Twombly, Knute Stiles, Frank Weise, Benjamin Forrest Williams, and Stefan Wolpe. The school closed in 1957 due to funding issues; Camp Rockmont for Boys now sits on the campus' site. The history and legacy of Black Mountain College are preserved and extended by the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center in nearby Asheville, North Carolina.