Black Mountain College + Arts Center is organizing, in partnership with Western Carolina University’s Fine Arts Museum, the showing of works by abstract expressionist Pat Passlof, an accomplished Black Mountain College alumna.

Her paintings will be on display at both venues from January 26 - May 27. Curated by Connie Bostic, of BMCM+AC, and Denise Drury, of WCU, the exhibition is titled Pat Passlof: Selections 1948–2011.

Passlof was a student at BMC during the Summer Institute of 1948 when she studied closely with Willem de Kooning, Josef Albers, Buckminster Fuller, M.C. Richards, and Merce Cunningham. After BMC, she continued her studies with de Kooning as his private student in New York City.

The exhibition will honor Passlof’s lifelong commitment to painting and will provide much needed recognition of her work as a teacher and as a writer about art.

The show will contain approximately 60 of her paintings, representing more than 60 years of her career, from her time at BMC to her most recent work.

A catalog that will accompany the show includes historical photographs, as well as reproductions of ephemera she exchanged with her students during her 39 years as a professor at the College of Staten Island.

Pat passed away on November 13, 2001, and The New York Times in her obituary said her canvases vibrated “with unpredictable line and thick, luminous color... .”