________________________
Dorothea Rockburne
1950
(With Joel Oppenheimer, poet)
I fell in love with the story of Black Mountain College and I have done posts on many of the people associated with the college such as Anni Albers, Josef Albers, Donald Alter, Sylvia Ashby, James Bishop, John Cage, Willem de Kooning (featured in 3 posts), Ted Dreier, Ted Dreier Jr., Robert Duncan, Jorge Fick, Walter Gropius, Heinrich Jalowetz, Pete Jennerjahn, Wassily Kandinsky, Karen Karnes, Martha King, Irwin Kremen, Charles Olson, Charles Perrow, Robert Rauschenber, M.C.Richards, Dorothea Rockburne, Xanti Schawinsky, Claude Stoller, Bill Treichler, Susan Weil, David Weinrib, and Vera B. Williams.
Dorothea Rockburne interview
Published on Aug 22, 2012
More interviews and artists at: http://www.artsconversations.org/
Please, also visit our main website: http://www.netropolitan.org/
An interview with abstract painter Dorothea Rockburne by Lyn Kienholz and Rohini Talalla for Netropolitan: Museum without walls.
http://www.netropolitan.org ©2003
A Gift of Knowing: The Art of Dorothea Rockburne
March 14, 2015 – April 26, 2015
Shaw Ruddock Gallery
Canadian artist Dorothea Rockburne grounds her practice in mathematical theories that she first encountered while studying with Max Dehn at the legendary Black Mountain College. This exhibition includes a selection of key works since the 1970s, featuring one of Rockburne’s most recent drawings, The Mathematical Edges of Maine, a response to her travel to the state in the summer of 2014.
Programming
April 21, 2015 | 4:30 p.m. | BCMA
Gallery Conversation: “Art, Mathematics, and the Legacy of Black Mountain College”
Dorothea Rockburne, Ph.D, artist, and Dave Peifer, chair and professor of Mathematics, University of North Carolina-Asheville, discuss the mathematical theories behind Rockburne’s artistic work. They further explain how her art reflects the interdisciplinary education provided by the legendary Black Mountain College. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition A Gift of Knowing: The Art of Dorothea Rockburne.
My first post in this series was on the composer John Cage and my second post was on Susan Weil and Robert Rauschenberg who were good friend of Cage. The third post in this series was on Jorge Fick. Earlier we noted that Fick was a student at Black Mountain College and an artist that lived in New York and he lent a suit to the famous poet Dylan Thomas and Thomas died in that suit.
The fourth post in this series is on the artist Xanti Schawinsky and he had a great influence on John Cage who later taught at Black Mountain College. Schawinsky taught at Black Mountain College from 1936-1938 and Cage right after World War II. In the fifth post I discuss David Weinrib and his wife Karen Karnes who were good friends with John Cage and they all lived in the same community. In the 6th post I focus on Vera B. William and she attended Black Mountain College where she met her first husband Paul and they later co-founded the Gate Hill Cooperative Community and Vera served as a teacher for the community from 1953-70. John Cage and several others from Black Mountain College also lived in the Community with them during the 1950’s. In the 7th post I look at the life and work of M.C.Richards who also was part of the Gate Hill Cooperative Community and Black Mountain College.
In the 8th post I look at book the life of Anni Albers who is perhaps the best known textile artist of the 20th century and at Paul Klee who was one of her teachers at Bauhaus. In the 9th post the experience of Bill Treichler in the years of 1947-1949 is examined at Black Mountain College. In 1988, Martha and Bill started The Crooked Lake Review, a local history journal and Bill passed away in 2008 at age 84.
In the 10th post I look at the art of Irwin Kremen who studied at Black Mountain College in 1946-47 and there Kremen spent his time focused on writing and the literature classes given by the poet M. C. Richards. In the 11th post I discuss the fact that Josef Albers led the procession of dozens of Bauhaus faculty and students to Black Mountain.
In the 12th post I feature Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) who was featured in the film THE LONGEST RIDE and the film showed Kandinsky teaching at BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE which was not true according to my research. Evidently he was invited but he had to decline because of his busy schedule but many of his associates at BRAUHAUS did teach there. In the 13th post I look at the writings of the communist Charles Perrow.
Willem de Kooning was such a major figure in the art world and because of that I have dedicated the 14th, 15th and 16th posts in this series on him. Paul McCartney got interested in art through his friendship with Willem because Linda’s father had him as a client. Willem was a part of New York School of Abstract expressionism or Action painting, others included Jackson Pollock, Elaine de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Adolph Gottlieb, Anne Ryan, Robert Motherwell, Philip Guston, Clyfford Still, and Richard Pousette-Dart.
In the 17th post I look at the founder Ted Dreier and his strength as a fundraiser that make the dream of Black Mountain College possible. In the 18th post I look at the life of the famous San Francisco poet Robert Duncan who was both a student at Black Mountain College in 1933 and a professor in 1956. In the 19th post I look at the composer Heinrich Jalowetz who starting teaching at Black Mountain College in 1938 and he was one of Arnold Schoenberg‘s seven ‘Dead Friends’ (the others being Berg, Webern, Alexander Zemlinsky, Franz Schreker, Karl Kraus and Adolf Loos). In the 20th post I look at the amazing life of Walter Gropius, educator, architect and founder of the Bauhaus.
In the 21st post I look at the life of the playwright Sylvia Ashby, and in the 22nd post I look at the work of the poet Charles Olson who in 1951, Olson became a visiting professor at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, working and studying here beside artists such as John Cage and Robert Creeley.[2]
In the 23rd post is about the popular artist James Bishop who attended Black Mountain College towards the end of its existence. In the 24th post I look at the Poet-Writer Martha King. In the 25th post I talk about the life of the architect Claude Stoller and his time at Black Mountain College. In the 26th post I look at Ted Drieir. Jr., who was a student at Black Mountain College and the son of the founder. In the 27th post I look at the work of the artist Dorothea Rockburne.
Dorothea Rockburne
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dorothea Rockburne
Born
October 18, 1932
Montreal, Canada
Education
Black Mountain College
Known for
Mathematics, Astronomy, Abstract Art, Mannerism
Website
dorothearockburne.com
Dorothea Rockburne (born c.1932 in Montreal, Canada) is an abstract painter drawing inspiration primarily from her deep interest in mathematics and astronomy. Rockburne’s attraction to Mannerism has also influenced her work.[1] In 1950 she moved to the United States to attend Black Mountain College,[2] where she studied with mathematician Max Dehn, a lifelong influence on her work. In addition to Dehn, she studied with Franz Kline, Philip Guston, John Cage, and Merce Cunningham. She also met fellow student Robert Rauschenberg.
In 1955, Rockburne moved to New York City where she met many of the leading artists and poets of the time. Rockburne is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, National Academy of Design, and The Century Association.
Contents
[hide]
1 Awards and Honors
2 Exhibitions
2.1 Select Solo Exhibitions
2.2 Select Group Exhibitions
3 References
4 External links
Awards and Honors[edit]
2009 National Academy Museum & School of Fine Arts, Lifetime Achievement Award
2003, 2007 Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Lee Krasner Award
2003 Art Omi International, Francis J. Greenberger Award
2002 National Academy of Design, Pike Award for Watercolor
2002 National Academy of Design, Adolph & Clara Abrig Prize for Watercolor
2002 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant
2001 American Academy of Arts and Letters, Department of Art
1999 American Academy of Arts and Letters, Jimmy Ernst Lifetime Achievement Award in Art
1997 Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, Inc., Award
1997 Artist in Residence, Bellagio Study Center, Italy
1991 Artist in Residence, American Academy in Rome
1991 Rome Prize
1986 Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, Milton and Sally Avery Distinguished Professor
1985 Brandeis University, Creative Arts Award
1984 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Visiting Artist
1976 The Art Institute of Chicago, F.L.M. Witkowsky Painting Award
1974 National Endowment for the Arts
1972 Guggenheim Fellow
1963 Walter Guttman Foundation
1957 Walter Guttman Emerging Artist Award
1950 Black Mountain College, Asheville, NC, Entrance Scholarship
Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Montreal, Canada, Merit Scholarship
Montreal Museum School, Montreal, Canada, Arthur Lismer Merit Scholarship
Exhibitions[edit]
Select Solo Exhibitions[edit]
2014 Van Doren Waxter, New York, NY
2013 Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY[3]
2013 Jill Newhouse Gallery, New York, NY
2013 Icehouse Studio, Queens, New York, NY
2012 Craig F. Star Gallery, New York, NY
2012 Art Dealer’s Association of America, The Park Avenue Armory, New York, NY
2011 Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY
2011 The Drawing Room, East Hampton, NY
2010 New York Studio School,[4] New York, NY
2003 Dieu Donné Papermill, New York, NY
2003 Jan Abrams Fine Art, New York, NY
2000 Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York City, NY
1999 Art in General, New York City, NY
1997 Ingrid Raab Gallery, Berlin, Germany
1996 Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
1995 Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY
1994 Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York, NY
1992 Galleria Schema, Florence, Italy
1991 Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York, NY
1989 The Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA
1988 Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York, NY
1987 Recent Paintings and Drawings – Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, IL
1985 Xavier Fourcade, New York, NY
1983 Galleriet Lund, Lund, Sweden
1982 Recent Watercolors and Drawings – Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1981 Locus – MoMA – Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY [5]
1981 David Bellman Gallery, Toronto, Canada
1979 Texas Gallery, Houston, TX
1977 Galleria La Polena, Genova, Italy
1976 John Weber Gallery, New York, NY
1975 Galleria Schema, Florence, Italy
1975 Galerie Charles Kriwin, Brussels, Belgium
1974 Galleria Toselli, Milan, Italy
1973 Lisson Gallery, London, England
1972 Galleria Bonomo Bari, Bari, Italy
1972 Galleria Toselli, Milan, Italy
1971 Sonnabend Gallery, Paris, France
1970 Bykert Gallery, New York, NY
Select Group Exhibitions[edit]
2014 Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY
2014 Gagosian Gallery, Paris, France
2014 The Drawing Room, London, England
2013 Parrish Art Museum, Southhampton, NY
2013 Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME
2013 Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
2012 The Century Association, New York, NY
2012 Christie’s 20th Floor Private Sale Galleries, New York, NY
2012 Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
2011 The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
2011 Gagosian Gallery, New York, NY
2010 Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
2009 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA
2009 National Academy Museum, New York, NY
2008 Austin Museum of Art (AMOA), Austin, TX
2008 Museo de Arte Contemporanea de Serralves, Porto, Portugal
2007 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
2007 ARCO (Arte Contemporaneo), Madrid, Spain
2006 National Academy of Design, New York, NY
2004 Greenberg Van Doren Gallery
2003 Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
2002 Reina Sophia Museum, Madrid, Spain
2001 Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA
2000 Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY
1999 Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX
1995 The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT
1994 National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
1993 Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
1992 American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, New York, NY
1991 Centro Cultural/Arte Contemporanea, Mexico D.F., Mexico
1989 Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
1988 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
1988 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
1987 Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
1987 National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC
1986 Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
1983 Galleriet, Lund, Sweden
1983 New Museum, New York, NY
1982 British Museum, London, England
1982 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
1981 Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
1980 Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
1979 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
1979 Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ
1977 Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
1977 Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
1977 National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
1976 Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
1975 Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
1974 Institute of Contemporary Art, London, England
1973 Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
1973 San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA
1973 Fogg Museum, Cambridge, MA
1972 Documenta 5, Kassel, Germany
1971 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
1970 Museum of Modern Art New York, NY
1952 Black Mountain College Gallery, Black Mountain, NC
References[edit]
Jump up^ Bui, Phong (October 2007). “Isabelle Dervaux and Dorothea Rockburne with Phong Bui”. The Brooklyn Rail.
Jump up^ http://blackmountaincollege.org/content/view/123/60/
Jump up^ Karen Rosenberg, “Mathematical Ratios, Papered, Folded and Cut” (review of exhibition), New York Times, Dec. 12, 2013.
Jump up^ http://www.nyss.org/exhibition/dorothea-rockburne/
Jump up^ http://www.artfacts.net/en/artist/dorothea-rockburne-15623/profile.html
External links[edit]
Official Website
Brooklyn Rail interview by Bill Bartman with Klaus Kertess and Dorothea Rockburne
“Dorothea Rockburne”, New Art City
“Dorothea Rockburne”, Saul Ostrow, BOMB 25/Fall 1988,
Interview with Phong Bui in Brooklyn Rail from October 2007
Interview with David Levi Strauss and Christopher Bamford in Brooklyn Rail from July–August 2011
Charles Hayes interviews Dorothea Rockburne with photos by Guenter Knop. Ragazine.CC March–April 2014
Authority control
WorldCat
VIAF: 67272152
LCCN: n86808855
ISNI: 0000 0003 5488 895X
GND: 119270765
ULAN: 500017012
RKD: 67476
Categories:
Canadian emigrants to the United States
1930s births
Living people
1932 births
Contemporary painters
Canadian women painters
Rome Prize winners
Black Mountain College alumni
National Academy of Design members
Guggenheim Fellows
20th-century women artists
the women of black mountain college
Francine Du Plessix
Writer
(With Joel Oppenheimer, poet)
Anne Albers card weaving.
1930s
Anne Albers
“Monte Alban”
1936
Frances Kuntz in drawing class.
(That’s Joe behind her.)
1939
“Dody Harrison looking out of her study window, Lake Eden,
probably 1942.”
(Photo and caption by William Hamlin.)
She is in the Studies Building I profiled here.
Fannie Hillsmith
Painter
(with Charles Egan, Gallerist)
Photo by Aaron Siskin
1940
Fannie Hillsmith
“Honfleur Remembered”
1961
Elaine De Kooning
“Untitled”
1947
Elaine De Kooning
“Black Mountain #6”
1948
Helen Frankenthaler
(with Clement Greenberg)
1950
Helen Frankenthaler
“At Black Mountain”
1950
Viola Farber
Dancer in “Summerspace”
1958
(Choreography Merce Cunningham, music Morton Feldman, design Robert Rauschenberg)
Susan Weil
(with Bob Rauschenberg)
1948
Susan Weil
“Secrets”
1949
Mary Gregory
“Table Stool”
1941
Mary Gregory
“Plates”
1941
Hazel Larsen Archer
“Quiet House Doors”
1948
Elizabeth Jennerjahn
“Cross”
1949
Dorothea Rockburne
1950
Dorothea Rockburne
“Origin”
1972
Ruth Asawa
“Untitled”
1954
Dorothea Rockburne Interview by Connie Bostic
Transcribed by Jolene Mechanic
This is Connie Bostic. It’s April 19th, 2002. We’re in the studios of Bonesteel Films on Carolina Lane in Asheville, North Carolina and we’re with Dorothea Rockburne. Dorothea could you tell us when you attended Black Mountain College?
I came in the fall of 1950 and I left the following June, and then I returned in the beginning of January of 1951. I was there for a long time, I think until 1955.
That was quite a long time.
Yes. You know, I was married and my daughter was born there. So, I took some time out for that.
Can you tell us a little bit about your early life and how you came to go to Black Mountain?
Yes. I was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and pretty early on a teacher from the public school that I went to took me to Ecole de Beaux-Arts on Saturdays to study drawing and painting. And while I was there, I worked with some pretty wonderful teachers who taught me Renaissance techniques, and one in particular became quite a well known Canadian artist and showed in New York and later went to Paris. His name was Paul Borduas, and his parting words to me as he left for America were, “as soon as you can you have to leave Montreal.” In those days I spoke French and he didn’t speak much English. By that time I was around 14. I’d fooled around and skied in the winters, and I wasn’t determined about exactly what I was going to do with my life. But by the time I was 13 I had stopped skiing so that I could paint on the weekends. I went to the Montreal Museum School and actually that’s where, a little bit later, I met Marie Tavroges. Her last name is now Stilkind. I studied there with some very good teachers. I took a drawing class with a man named Moe Rhineglat and he kept saying to me, “leave.” And my parents meanwhile had me tracked to go in a completely different direction and I have an older sister who went in that direction and I thought, “if I do that, I’ll die.” There was another teacher whose last name was Weber, but not only did he say ‘leave” but he said “you should either go to the Slade School in England,” because I had this academic training, “or you should go to the Institute of Design at Black Mountain College.” And I was sort of precocious and rebellious and I had a boyfriend who was older than I, and he had been to Black Mountain. His name was Jeffrey Lindsay. And he said I should go to Black Mountain College. He had a little dinner for me, and at that dinner were some Indian dancers who were just coming through Montreal, because Montreal was a big place to come to and leave from in those days, and their names were Veena and Vashi. I questioned them very closely about Black Mountain because I was very young, and I was going to leave my family against their desires, so this was a big, rebellious step. Fortunately I had an older sister who completely agreed with what these teachers were saying and she helped me. I didn’t have a passport, so I used her passport. We did lots of plotting and planning and all kinds of things because I had to have a police clearance before leaving the country. My sister was very good at imitating my mother’s handwriting. So, I wrote to Black Mountain, and sent them my work, and was admitted on complete scholarship. Because of the scholarship, I was able to work and save money. I’d started saving for my escape very early and a couple friends helped me. So that’s how I got here.
That was a pretty amazing journey.
It was! Because there were no planes, it was a train journey. I changed trains in Washington because that’s where the color line began. I didn’t know about prejudice. So all of that was a big adventure. And I stayed overnight in New York— it was a huge journey for me.
How old were you when you arrived at Black Mountain?
I’m very unsure about that but I think I was 18, I could have been 17—no, I had just turned 18. I was confused because of my sister’s identity. (Laughing)
Crime doesn’t pay (both laughing)
She could have changed the name on the passport but she couldn’t change the date, because the date was stamped on her birth certificate. So it’s all mucky, but I think I was 18.
What teachers influenced you most at Black Mountain?
Well, there were many, many influential teachers. Certainly John Cage. I had always studied dance in Montreal. In my family you came out of the womb enrolled in dance classes, so I had taken ballet, which was then called toe-dancing (laughing). So it was just automatic to check into a Cunningham dance class at Black Mountain. I also took classes with Max Dehn, the mathematics teacher, which revolutionized my life. I was already bent in that direction because by the age of 13 I had a subscription to Scientific American, which was a very radical thing for a 13 year old to be doing.
Particularly a girl
Yes, particularly a girl. You know, my family could never understand what I was up to. And I was to a degree, for my age, musically sophisticated. Also Pete Jennerjahn was big. His light/sound/movement workshop was of great interest to me. And I took Flola Shepard’s linguistic course, and semiotics and I just flourished. I was like a dry sponge. I couldn’t believe it. And then I took Bill Levi’s Introduction to Philosophy and while I’d done some sporadic reading on my own, I certainly read Sartre and things like that, his course was beautiful and basic, and it just gave me a foundation to read anything. And right now in my life I’m reviewing the early Greek philosophers and trying to relate their concept of atomic physics to particle physics and quantum mechanics, I mean I’m trying to put all of that together. And you know because I was young when I did all this the first time I didn’t understand that Aristotle was not a scientist he was a poet, which is why his concept of astronomy was poetic. I’m just beginning to put that together but it was my education at Black Mountain that gave me the tools to do all this.
And I believe you studied. . .
And I was never just a painter. I always did and still do fish around. I study. I want to know everything at once. I want to be an interdisciplinary person.
You studied photography at Black Mountain.
I studied with Hazel Larsen and my fellow students were Cy Twombly and Bob Rauschenberg, and of course, Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan were here for visits. I studied with them and also Steichen. And Steichen asked me to bring my work to the Museum of Modern Art when I came to New York, and he tried to help me with a photography gallery. And I’ve looked to see if my work is in the Modern collection and it’s never listed but he bought work for the Modern, so who knows what happened to it. I’ve always used photography as a way to draw. Because I had this academic drawing background, I never wanted to draw realistically. And I still use my camera to draw.
Of the teachers you had at Black Mountain, which ones do you think were most influential?
It was probably Max Dehn. But it’s hard to say because for me my entire experience there was just spectacular.
Can you tell us a little bit about Max Dehn’s classes and what they were like and what his theories were?
Yes. Mathematics was a peculiar experience for me. I went to a very dumb girl’s school where you were trained to be a good housewife, basic