Photo Credit: David Dietrich

Artist

Elaine Schmitt Urbain (Primary)

Title

Untitled (Black Mountain College, Ruth Asawa)

Date

1946

Century

20th century

Medium & Support

Watercolor on paper

Object Type

Paintings

Credit Line

Black Mountain College Collection, gift of the children of Ruth Asawa

Accession Number

2018.01.01

Copyright

In Copyright
© Estate of Elaine Schmitt Urbain

While a student at Black Mountain College during the 1945 Summer Art Institute and academic year through the 1946 Summer Art Institute, Schmitt Urbain studied intensively under Josef Albers, in whose class she met her future husband John Urbain. She extensively explored watercolor studies through assignments in Albers’s painting course, taking still lifes of lemons, bottles, and violins, as well as gestural human forms and portraits as her subjects. The above exercise asked students to create an image with an absence of line, employing only shape and color to render a scene. As with many students and faculty, the artist drew upon her peers as ready sitters, including Ruth Asawa, depicted here. Despite the formality of the assignment, Schmitt Urbain captures the warm presence of her life-long friend.

Exhibition Title: Asheville Art Museum: An Introduction to the Collection
Label Date: 2021
Type: Catalogue Entry
Written by: Hilary Schroeder

• student drawings