Donald "Don" Alter

Donald Alter shared in his application, “by attending Black Mountain College I hope to help myself become more mundane. I hope to become more independent in my thinking and living. I also believe it is important for an individual to learn of his relation with cooperative community life. In the final analysis I believe that all the things I hope to gain at Black Mountain would help me to become a more aware and more worthwhile artist. From the information I have gathered about Black Mountain I have concluded that the program offered is conductive to the afore said.”

He attended from the fall of 1948 to the summer of 1951. He took Textile Construction in the Spring of 1949 with Trude Guermonprez and Anni Albers.

The following biography was written by Mary Emma Harris for the Black Mountain College Project.

"Donald Alter heard about Black Mountain College at the High School of Music and Art in New York where he was a student. A first generation American, Don had grown up in the Bronx, where his his father Sol Alter, a Polish immigrant, was a bread baker.

At Black Mountain Alter took a general curriculum with an emphasis in the arts. He studied Drawing, Painting and Color with Josef Albers and Textile Design with Anni Albers and Trude Guermonprez. After Albers left, he studied painting and drawing with Joseph Fiore and design with Warren Pete Jennerjahn. Don also was active in the Light Sound Movement Workshop taught by Betty and Pete Jennerjahn. On the farm he fed the cows and drove the half-ton military truck.

Don left Black Mountain after the 1951 summer session and was drafted into the army. He was trained as an artillery forward observer but was later assigned as a artist to design training aids. When he was released, he enrolled at Pratt Institute in New York to continue his studies in textile design. In 1955 he and two other designers opened a studio New Line Designers. Inc. Don later formed his own textile design business, Design Logic, Inc. The designs were prepared for use as home furnishing textile fabrics and wall papers and also for uses as various other products in the home furnishing industry. The designs were both commissioned and noncommissioned and promoted and sold in the market. Alter recalled that the distribution of his design products was international and that he found the effort very challenging.

After the death of his first wife Claire Rosensweig, Don and his second wife Alice Himmel reared their three children one each from previous marriages and one together."

Black Mountain College Project

Mary Emma Harris interviewed Donald in 2001 and the transcript is available from Appalachian State University under The Mary Emma Harris and Black Mountain College Project, Inc. Oral History collection.

Topics: Study at High School of Music and Art in New York – family background – travel by bus to Black Mountain – first impressions of the college – Josef Albers classes – study with Joseph Fiore and Warren “Pete’ Jennerjahn – association with other students as role models – work program on farm – college visitors – Olson and Tarot cards – classes with Max Dehn – mealtimes at BMC – general college atmosphere – reasons for leaving – incident with Delores Fullman in Asheville – service in military – study at Pratt – textile design business – influence of BMC

Courses Taken

Fall Term 1948-1949: Drawing (Albers), Painting (Albers), Elementary Music (Bodky), Elementary German (Rice)

Spring Term 1948-1949: Color (Albers), Russian tutorial (Goldowski), Bookbinding (Jalowetz), Writing (Olson), Textile Construction I (Guermonprez & Albers), German(Bodky)

Fall Term 1949-1950: Book Binding (Jalowetz), Painting (Fiore), Drawing (Fiore), Design (Jennerjahn), Geometry for Artists (Dehn)

Spring term 1949-1950: Painting (Fiore), Design (Jennerjahn), Drawing (Fiore)

Summer Term 1950: Color (Jennerjahn), Photography (Oates & Larson)

Fall Term 1950: Philosophy (Dehn), Advanced Color and Design Tutorial (Jennerjahn), Painting (Fiore), Drawing (Fiore), Reading (Richards)

Spring Term 1951: Drawing (Fiore), Painting tutorial (Fiore), Seminar Methods, Trends in Contemporary Painting (Fiore), Light Sound Movement (Pete and Betty Jennerjahn)