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Artist
Unknown BMC (Primary)
Title

Black Mountain College Newsletter No. 8, May 1940: First Graduation in the art field

Date
1940
Century
20th century
Medium & Support
Ink on paper
Object Type
Archival Documents
Credit Line
Black Mountain College Collection, gift of Barbara Beate Dreier and Theodore Dreier, Jr. on behalf of all generations of Dreier family
Accession Number
2017.40.254
Copyright
In Copyright, Educational Use Permitted
Description

Matte paper 4 pages. Newsletter announces the first graduations in the field of art, with examinations conducted by Marcel Breuer- "According to Marcel Breuer, the standard of acheivement was unusually high." Four students passed their exams including Hope Stevens, Richard L. Andrews, Bela Martin, Alexander S Reed. Also mentions the summer plans of various students and faculty, lists visitors to campus throughout the spring, and other campus updates.

Black Mountain College Newsletter
Number 8 May 1940
First graduation in the art field
Examination by Marcel Breuer
Fou students, the first to graduate in the field of art, were examined May 16 and 17 by Marcel Breuer, Assistant Professor of Architecture in the School of Design of Harvard University. The examination consisted of judging the class work and free studies of each student, reading their papers on three assigned subjects, discussing their work, papers and notebooks, and testing their familiarity with past periods of art. According to Mr Breuer, the standard of achievement was unusually high.
The four graduates are Hope Stephens, of Arden, Delaware; Richard L. Andrews, of Bronxville, New York; Bela Martin, of Louisville, Kentucky; and Alexander S Reed, of Rumson, New Jersey. Next fall Miss Stephens will work as an apprentice teacher in Shady Hill School, Cambridge, Mass. Fall plans of the other three graduates are still tentative.
Summer plans
Summer plans of members of the community include trips by certain faculty members to various sections of the country to visit friends of the college, interview prospective students, and build up the Black Mountain College Association, which is an organization of friends of the college who contribute $100 or more each year. John Evarts will be in New York and New England, Anne and Fred Mangold in California and Colorado, and Robert Wunsch, who will be a demonstration teacher in the University of Chicago workshop, in Chicago and vicinity, Lake Eden Inn will be reopened this year under the management of Charles Lindsley and Morton Steinau. Fourteen students, six girls and eight boys, will be employed. The college will be located at Lake Eden during the summer.
Dr Heinrich Jalowetz, Professor of Music, and Mr Edward Steuermann, Polish pianist, will conduct five-week courses in voice and piano this summer at Lake Eden.
Increase in faculty
Because the faculty has been understaffed this year and because an increase in enrollment is expected, the Board has been considering candidates for an unusual number of positions. There are vacancies in the fields of Biology, American History, Political Science and Physics, since Ted Dreier is now giving all his time to teaching Mathematics and to the affairs of the college. other positions to be filled are those of technical assistant in Dramatics, to replace Bedford Thurman; piano instructor to share the teaching of Dr Jalowetz and John Evarts; second art teacher to share the work now being done by Josef Albers; and an economics instructor to replace Gerald Barnes. To date appointments to the faculty include: Robert Babcock in Political Science (BA, university of Rochester, 1937; Oxford University as Rhodes Scholar from Illinois, 1937; Research Fellow at Northwestern University, 19391940).
Dr J Richard Carpenter in Biology (BS, Illinois, 1932; MA, 1934, and PhD, 1939, University of Oklahoma; Oxford University as Rhodes Scholar from Oklahoma, 1935-1938).
It is with regret that the community accepts the resignation of Bedford Thurman, assistant in Dramatics, who plans to continue his graduate studies at the University of Iowa next fall.
Many guests
Many guests visited the college this spring, among whom were Clifford, Odets, Wiliam Koslenke, Carlos Merida, Robert Hass, Mr and Mrs Dwight Morrow, Mrs Taymond Gram Swing, Mrs Harry Guggenheim, Dr Richard Gothe, and Marcel Breuer. There were also many friends and parents of students and prospective students as well as three alumni.
Mr Odets, Broadway playwright and Pulitzer Prize winner, and Mr Koslenko, writer and editor of contemporary one-act plays, visited the college for several days the first part of April. Mr Odets read to the community his recent comedy-drama, “Night-Music,” and spoke on the position of the young artist in America. Mr Merida, an outstanding Mexican abstract painter and lithographer, had a small exhibition of his works and lectured on abstract art. Mr Haas, Viennese photographer and typographer, the only Austrian to win both the Grand Prix and the Gold Medal, has spent the last two months here and has been making a photographic study of community life and of the spring dramatic productions for the college.
Dr Gothe, a member of the National Youth Commission and Secretary of Work Camps For America, spoke on “Experience with Youth at Work and Study” and “Economics in Everyday Life.”
News briefs
Because of the value of Guest Week, the community has decided to hold another next year. This year’s speakers, who had not been decided upon by the time of the last newsletter, were Dr Erwin Strauss, whose address was entitled “Education in Time of Chaos,” and Mr Josef Albers, who gave an illustrated lecture on “The Meaning of Art.”
Following the tour of “Macbeth,” the last play of the season, Thorton Wilder’s one-act “The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden,” was given at the Western North Carolina Sanatorium before the Womans’ Club of Black Mountain, as well as in Lee Hall.
The tentative list of plays to be given next year includes Sutton Vane’s “Outward Bound,” which will be produced early November; “The Taming of the Shrew,” to be given outdoors at Lake Eden next spring; and Gay’s “The Beggar’s Opera,” which will be produced by a combined cast from the Music and Dramatics departments late in the year.
The college chorus, under the direction of Dr Jalowetz, gave performances of the Bach Cantata “God’s Time is the Best” in Asheville at the home of Mrs Robert Carroll, and here at the college. The soloists were Jane Mayhall, Frances Kuntz, Gerald Barnes, and Beford Thurman.
In April Mr Wunsch spent several days at the guest of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, where he acted as consultant to the English department. He was sent by the commission on teacher education of the American Council on Education.
Mrs Albers, instructor in Textile Design, addressed the twentieth annual convention of the Southern States Art League in Charlotte, South Carolina, on Handweaving Today.”
Evelyn Tubbs, Hyalie Yamins, and Jim Raymond were elected in May as student officers to serve until 1940. Frank Nacke, student moderator, will remain in office until that time.
Mr and Mrs Morton Steinau (Barbara Hall) announce the birth of a daughter, Joan.
Five students have formed a local chapter of the national Youth Committee Against War.

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