Adele Suska

Adele Suska LaBreque was a student at Black Mountain College for the 1950-51 academic year and for the 1951 summer session. At the end of the summer she left for San Francisco with friends. She then returned to Black Mountain in the summer of 1952.

Before arriving at Black Mountain, she had graduated in art from Hunter College in New York and studied at the Art Students League with Yashua Kunyoshi. At Black Mountain she studied design, color, textile design, dance and weaving. In New York she worked first as a creative director for a direct mail marketing company.

She then worked in Saudi Arabia for Aramco, the Saudi Arabian oil and gas company, as a designer for their Middle East advertising. This involved designing in English text so that it could be translated into French and also into Arabic which would be written in calligraphy and read from right to left. During this period she travelled extensively in the Middle East.

After six years, she returned to the United States with her husband, a data processor. For a year they travelled and she studied at Cordon Bleu. After five years in California they moved to North Africa where her husband worked for petroleum companies for about eighteen years.

There was little opportunity there for work for a woman and so she painted and was a homemaker. When they returned to the United States, they lived in Clemmons, North Carolina. After the death of her husband, she move to Santa Fe where she was active as a volunteer at the Santa Fe Opera House.

She shared about her time at BMC for the Sante Fe New Mexican, "That was an exciting time in my life. My studio was next door to Robert Rauschenberg's. He was the most friendly, helpful, outgoing person I had ever met. I also befriended Merce Cunningham, John Cage, David Tudor, Robert Motherwell, Cy Twombly and many other well-known artists."

Biography written by Mary Emma Harris for the Black Mountain College Project.

Alternative Name: Adele Suska LaBrecque

Courses Taken

Fall 1950-1951:Design with Jennerjahn, Color with Jennerjahn, Drawing with Fiore, Dance with B. Jennerjahn, Weaving with Oates

Spring 1950-1951: Dance Technique with B. Jennerjahn, Color with Jennerjahn, Textile Design, Weaving with Oates

Summer 1951: Dance with Litz

Obituary:

Adele LaBrecque during her nearly 94 years studied art at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, danced the flamenco in New York City, and journeyed to Dharan, Saudi Arabia, as a single woman in the 1950s to work in public relations for Aramco Oil Co.

She was just getting started. From there, she married Maurice LaBrecque, who she met in Dharan, had two sons – Louis and Mark – and lived in Tripoli, Libya, from 1966 to 1984 during a time of immense change in the country. The family traveled widely, and Adele immersed herself in her art, whether it was painting scenes of everyday life in Saudi Arabia or filming and acting as editor and producer of homemade documentary films in both Saudi Arabia and Libya.

Adele and Maury moved to Winston-Salem, N.C., after leaving Libya following Maury’s retirement, and Adele ultimately worked in Wake Forest University’s alumni office until her own retirement in early 1999, more than nine years after her husband’s death in December 1989. At that point, she headed to Santa Fe, a place where she felt completely at home.

Volunteer work was a given for Adele, and she put her talents to use at a variety of organizations, including the Santa Fe Opera and the Lensic Performing Arts Center. Adele continued to paint and found a wonderful group of friends who enriched her life.