Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
Street view of BMCM+AC
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 Asheville, NC
Asheville, NC
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| Established | 1933 |
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| Location | 56 + 69 Broadway Asheville, North Carolina |
| Coordinates | 35°35′50″N 82°33′08″W / 35.597301°N 82.55216°W |
| Type | Art museum |
| Founder | Mary Holden Thompson |
| Nearest parking | Street parking |
| Website | blackmountaincollege |
The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) is an exhibition space and resource center located at 56 Broadway in downtown Asheville, North Carolina dedicated to preserving and continuing the legacy of educational and artistic innovations of Black Mountain College (BMC). BMCM+AC achieves its mission through collection, conservation, and educational activities including exhibitions, publications and public programs.
BMCM+AC was founded in 1993 by Mary Holden Thompson to pay tribute to BMC (1933–1957). The museum and arts center existed as a nomadic organization from 1993 until 2003, when it moved to its current downtown Asheville location, 15 miles from the both BMC campuses at Lake Eden and the Blue Ridge Assembly in Black Mountain, NC. BMCM+AC was first based out of founder Mary Holden Thompson's house in Black Mountain, NC. It expanded to Zone one contemporary, a gallery in downtown Asheville from 1991–2000 owned by long-time BMCM+AC board member Connie Bostic. The museum then moved to the Kellogg Conference Center in Hendersonville, NC followed by Warren Wilson College and finally 56 Broadway.
In Summer 2014 BMCM+AC received a major grant from the Windgate Charitable Foundation (Siloam Springs, AR) in support of a three-year plan to expand its facilities and public programs. BMCM+AC opened an additional gallery at 69 Broadway and created storage space for the growing collection of artwork and materials by faculty and alumni of Black Mountain College.
Asheville-based and internationally recognized artist Randy Shull designed and fabricated the overall expansion project including the two related gallery spaces in the BMCM+AC’s facility at 56 and 69 Broadway in downtown Asheville.
The BMCM+AC collection includes items with dates of creation ranging from 1931–2004. All items in the collection have a direct connection to the history of BMC, such as original college publications and other primary source materials. Components of the collection are photographs (24%), ephemera (22.5%), paintings (12%), drawings/prints (12%), poems/books/monographs/magazines/articles (11%), writings/correspondences (6%). The museum owns a variety of objects, including ceramics/clay (4%), furniture/wood (1.5%), sculptures (1%), weavings/fiber (1.5%), collages and mixed media pieces (4%), broadsides/artists’ books (.3%) and music/album covers (.2%). The permanent collection includes 2,000+ pieces of artwork and ephemera.
In addition, the collection features a full set of the poetry journal, The Black Mountain Review, which formed the group of writers known as the Black Mountain Poets. In Summer 2013, the museum acquired a 1971 work by BMC alumnus Robert Rauschenberg, Opal Gospel, 10 American Indian Poems, consisting of 10 moveable silkscreened acrylic panels of American Indian stories and imagery. Other noted pieces in the collection are furniture from the original Black Mountain College campuses: two benches from the Quiet House, a place for contemplation, meditation, and observance of special occasions at the Lake Eden campus and a desk designed by Josef Albers. BMCM+AC has an original Black Mountain College directional sign from the Lake Eden Campus, which is displayed in the 56 Broadway Space reception area. The collection features many other works by various alumni, faculty and key figures of Black Mountain College including, among many others, Ruth Asawa, Ray Johnson, Kenneth Noland, Charles Olson, M. C. Richards, Dorothea Rockburne and Susan Weil.
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