Significant holdings by early 20th-century artists include William Waldo Dodge, Jr. The Museum has been particularly active in collecting historic and contemporary craft and studio glass with a focus on the Southeast and WNC, covering all media and dating from the early part of the 20th century through the present. View the Black Mountain College Collection. Within the BMC Collection, the Museum is also the repository of the Lorna Blaine Halper Estate.
Because of the College’s regional and international significance, and the impact that its revolutionary educational style had on modern art, the Museum is committed to preserving the legacy of BMC, with 1,500+ objects and documents by faculty and alumni such as by Josef & Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, John Cage, and Robert Rauschenberg. From 1933 to 1957, BMC was a unique experiment in American education and a center for experimentation in all areas of the arts. One of the major focuses of the Collection is works of significance by artists associated with Black Mountain College, which was located 15 miles east of Asheville. Dobbins, Kate Clayton “Granny” Donaldson, and James Harold Jennings. Outsider artists of the region include Raymond Coins, C.J. Ellington, Maud Gatewood, Hoss Haley, Eric Knoche, Anne Lemanski, Sallie Ellington Middleton, Kenneth Noland, Mark Peiser, Will Henry Stevens, Lucille Stonier, and Bob Trotman. This includes work by Joshua Adams, Rob Amberg, Cynthia Bringle, Virgil Crowe, Margaret Curtis, Douglas D. Works by artists of the region make up approximately one-half of the Museum’s Collection. Fine handmade objects created in the region-from early residents, including Cherokee Indians and regional craftspeople, to contemporary studio craft as exemplified by the Penland School of Crafts.