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Black Mountain College: a Spirit Place

The Feature Documentary

Black Mountain College

Nestled in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, this revolutionary experiment in education lasted just 24 years. Yet, it has had a greater impact on the arts than any other American institution. 

Against a backdrop of global unrest, its idyllic campus became a refuge for artists and outsiders – a place where they could defy convention, embrace unbridled artistic freedom, and spark a creative flame that still burns in the heart of modern art and culture today.

Now, the story of this extraordinary and controversial place is being brought to life in a new feature documentary.

Black Mountain College

Nestled in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, this revolutionary experiment in education lasted just 23 years, from 1933-1957. Yet, it has had a greater impact on the arts than any other American institution. 

Buckminster Fuller and students test geodesic dome, 1947 Kenneth Noland with painting at Black Mountain College Lake Eden campus ca. 1947 Jane "Slats" Slater by Lake Eden, ca. 1943 Two students walking from the farm to the fields in the summer of 1944. Summer Art Institute panel discussion, 1944 Elaine de Kooning (center), R. Buckminster Fuller, Ray Johnson, Albert Lanier, and others with the Supine Dome, 1948 Karen Karnes at pottery wheel Leo Amino, Jacob Lawrence, and others on lawn of dining hall with Trojan Horse, summer 1946 Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence and Jacob Lawrence on porch, summer 1946 Robert Rauschenberg finalizes the centaur costume on Ingeborg Svarc Lauterstein on the balcony of the studies building, 1949 Dance class in front of Lee Hall, ca. 1939 Lawrence Kocher with architecture students on the deck of the Studies Building, Lake Eden campus, Black Mountain College, ca. 1941-1942 Josef Albers and student Robert De Niro, ca. 1940. Student Emil Willometz is in the right foreground Ruth Asawa, in art class Connie Spencer participating in Lake Eden campus construction, ca. 1941 Summer Art Institute faculty, 1946 Ati Gropius (Forberg Johansen), Mary Phelan (Otten Powels), Jean Varda, and Harry Siedler in Varda's car, 1946 Summer Art Institute

Buckminster Fuller and students test geodesic dome, 1947

Image courtesy of the Western Regional Archives, State Archives of North Carolina

Against a backdrop of global unrest, Black Mountain College’s idyllic campus became a refuge for artists and outsiders – a place where they could defy convention, embrace unbridled artistic freedom, and spark a creative flame that still burns in the heart of modern art and culture today.

Now, the story of this extraordinary and controversial place is being brought to life in a new feature documentary.

“It was able to attract these remarkable people and is now a symbol of every modern tendency in the arts.”

-Alfred Kazin

1992 Black Mountain College reunion in San Francisco, CA.

Filmed by Director David Royle.

1992 Black Mountain College reunion in San Francisco, CA. Filmed by Director David Royle.

The Film

Over 30 years ago, Emmy Award-winning director David Royle began filming the last remaining voices of Black Mountain College—John Cage, Jacob Lawrence, Arthur Penn, Dorothea Rockburne, Lou Harrison, Ruth Asawa, and many others. The result is never-before-seen footage of performances, art, and stories: an intimate record of Black Mountain’s creative spirit preserved before it was lost forever.

Now, with the guidance of Larry Wheeler, Director Emeritus of the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Black Mountain Legacy Film Project nonprofit has been formed to help bring the film to its completion in 2026.

The Production Team

Black Mountain Documentary Committee

JK Brown, Libby Buck, Nancy Cable, David Crabtree, Jo Cresimore, Laura Edwards, Libba Evans, Anne Faircloth, Joyce Fitzpatrick, Alison Friedman, Carlos Garcia-Velez, Valerie Hillings, Marjorie Hodges, Marilyn Jacobs Preyer, Thomas Kenan, Thane Kerner, Laura Kieler, Elizabeth Manekin, Staci Meyer, Rachel Raney, Larry Robbins, Liza Roberts, Wyndham Robertson, David Royle, Sara Segelin, Randy Shull, Chris Shuping, Catherine Swain, Sarah Tignor, Kim Von Weihe, Tim Warmath, Darin Waters, Larry Wheeler

"[Black Mountain] gave rise to a network of artists who would spread its utopian spirit, ideas and vision to various precincts of the contemporary art world."

- Amanda Fortini, The New York Times

The Artists

"[Black Mountain] gave rise to a network of artists who would spread its utopian spirit, ideas and vision to various precincts of the contemporary art world."

- Amanda Fortini, The New York Times

Albers. Asawa. de Kooning. Cunningham. Jennerjahn. Lawrence. Harrison. Cage. Penn. Rockburne. Noland. Twombly. Fuller. Creeley. Rauschenberg. Olson. The list goes on… So does the story.

The legend of Black Mountain is written in names. It was the small, unlikely place where many of them first found each other — where Buckminster Fuller raised his first geodesic dome, where Merce Cunningham formed his dance company, where John Cage staged the first Happening, and where Willem de Kooning painted Asheville. Students like Robert Rauschenberg and Ruth Asawa left and spent lifetimes devoted to the arts.

As Amanda Fortini wrote in The New York Times, Black Mountain "gave rise to a network of artists who would spread its utopian spirit, ideas and vision to various precincts of the contemporary art world."

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A person sitting on the ground and painting on paper, with art supplies and paintings around them on the street.

Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence painting outside during Black Mountain College's 1946 summer session. Photograph by Nancy Newhall. Courtesy of the Western Regional Archives, State Archives of North Carolina.