Vera B. Williams / STORIES
Eight Decades of Politics and Picture Making

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center

January 26 – May 11, 2024

​Andy Oates, Vera Williams, ca. 1950. Collection of BMCM+AC.

Vera B. Williams attended BMC from 1945-1950 when she became one of the few to formally graduate. She was a student of Josef Albers and had sculptor Richard Lippold as her outside examiner prior to graduation. She married architect Paul Williams at the college and, with him, co-founded the artists’ co-op community called The Land in Stony Point, New York. Williams was an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books that often centered on diverse, working-class families, perhaps informed by her own childhood growing up during the Depression as the daughter of immigrants from Eastern Europe.

The Land at Stony Point, also known as Gate Hill Cooperative, became an outcropping of Black Mountain College’s experimental ethos. It was inspired by a BMC faculty member Paul Goodman’s Communitas: Means of Livelihood and Ways of Life, which he lectured on at the Summer Institute of 1950. BMC luminaries John Cage, David Tudor, M.C. Richards, Karen Karnes, David Weinrib, Stan VanDerBeek, and Patsy Lynch Wood shaped Gate Hill as founding members of the community alongside Vera Baker and Paul Williams.

The exhibition will highlight three aspects of Vera B. Williams’ life and work: her time at Black Mountain College, her political activism, and her work as a children’s book author.

Williams attended Black Mountain College in the 1940s and early 1950s, where she embraced all aspects of living, working, and learning in the intensely creative college community. She eventually graduated with Josef Albers as her advisor and sculptor Richard Lippold as her outside examiner. This section of the exhibition will include historic photographs, artwork, and ephemera made by Williams and other members of the BMC community.

Willians’ political activism began very early under the influence of her progressive parents and continued throughout her life. She designed seventy-six covers for Liberation Magazine, protested against the war in Vietnam and nuclear proliferation, participated as an activist and leader of the War Resisters League, supported women’s causes and racial equality, was arrested in 1981, and spent a month in federal prison. The exhibition will put a spotlight on Williams’ tireless efforts towards these causes through her artwork and political action.

In the 1970s, Williams began a new life as an author and illustrator of children’s books. She found a way to combine her human-centered politics of inclusion and her celebration of diversity in books that also made use of her artistic training at BMC under the color master Josef Albers. Vera’s books won Caldecott Honors and many other awards as they explored aspects of society rarely found in children’s books of the time. This section of the exhibition will include original illustrations for her books.

Installation photos:

Learn More: Alec Dunn on LIBERATION Magazine

In this conversation with Alec Dunn, you can learn more about Williams’ path to LIBERATION Magazine through BMC and the many graphic styles she explored through her work on the magazine.

Related Programs

Opening Reception
Friday, January 26, 2024 – 5:30–8pm
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center {120 College Street}
Free and Open to All

Join us for the opening reception for Vera B. Williams / STORIES, hosted at BMCM+AC on the evening of the exhibition’s premiere. Refreshments will be offered.

Art, Community, and Social Activism: The Untold Story of Vera B. Williams
A Conversation with Mark Davenport
Saturday, January 27th, 2024 at 11 AM
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center {120 College Street}
Free and Open to All

Musicologist and sociocultural historian Mark Davenport will draw on his forthcoming book (Community, Art, Education, and the Search for Meaning: From Black Mountain College to the Gate Hill Cooperative) to shed light on Williams’s life as an artist, community builder and social activist. Davenport’s intimate talk (his mother Patsy Lynch and Vera Baker were college roommates at BMC) will complement several special items in the exhibition and offer an exclusive opportunity to view archival photographs curated from his extensive digital image collection.

The Stories of Vera B. Williams
Storytime for Kids
Saturday, February 24, 2024 at 10:30 AM
Pack Memorial Library {67 Haywood Street}
Free and open to All

Join BMCM+AC and Buncombe County Public Libraries for a special storytime event. Kids and families will learn a little history about Vera B. Williams, then read and flex our creative muscles with activities inspired by the books Something Special for Me and Cherries and Cherry Pits. Readings and activities will be best-suited for ages 5-9. The event will be located at Pack Memorial Library in downtown Asheville.

PERSPECTIVES: Alec Dunn on LIBERATION Magazine
Wednesday, May 8th, 2024
YouTube + Vimeo + Facebook

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center presents a conversation with Alec Dunn about LIBERATION Magazine and Vera B. Williams. Williams became involved with LIBERATION while living at the Gate Hill Co-op in Rockland County, NY. She went on to be the magazine’s principal cover artist, illustrating 76 covers over the course of its publication. Alec Dunn’s research tells the story of Williams’ path to LIBERATION through BMC and the many graphic styles she explored through her work on the magazine.

Special thanks to: