Joseph Fiore:
Black Mountain College Paintings
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
January 26 – May 11, 2024
Joseph Fiore, Large Pitcher and Fruit, 1947. Collection of Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, gift of The Falcon Foundation.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Joseph Fiore (1925-2008) first enrolled at Black Mountain College for the Summer Session of 1946, the summer that Josef Albers invited Jacob Lawrence to teach painting at BMC. Over the next three years, Fiore also studied with Ilya Bolotowsky, Willem de Kooning, and Jean Varda. In 1949, after Josef and Anni Albers’ departure, Joe was invited to join the faculty, and he taught painting and drawing until 1956 when the college leaders decided to close.
After BMC closed, Joe and his wife Mary, whom he met and married at BMC, moved to New York City. There he became involved with the 10th Street art scene of the late 1950s and 1960s, a group of galleries that exhibited the work of young artists on the rise. Eventually he resumed his teaching career at the Philadelphia College of Art, Maryland Institute College of Art, and the National Academy.
In May of 2001, Joseph Fiore was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Prize at the National Academy of Design in New York. The Carnegie Prize is awarded “for painting” at the National Academy’s Members’ Show.
This exhibition consists of paintings in our collection donated by the artist and by The Falcon Foundation. All of the paintings were made at Black Mountain College and show Fiore’s distinctive use of color and his ability to work comfortably in the spaces between abstraction and representation.
Curated by Alice Sebrell, Director of Preservation
Special thanks to:
