Harry Noland, Jr.

Harry Noland was the one of three Noland brothers ‒ Harry, Kenneth and Neil ‒ to attend Black Mountain College. He was a student from 1946-1948, including the 1947 and 1948 summer sessions. His wife Christa was nurse and his daughter Ann was born at the college.

At the college Noland took a general curriculum with a focus on chemistry. Noland had served in the army during the war, and after he left Black Mountain he reenlisted and was stationed primarily in Germany.

After he retired from the military, he taught photography at the Hampton Institute in Virginia. In Asheville, after graduation from high school in 1935, Noland had taught himself photography, photographing summer camps in the Asheville area and working in Palm Beach winters.

Photographs by Noland made after Black Mountain are at the Asheville Art Museum and the Western Regional Archives, State Archives of North Carolina.

Relationships

Wife: BMC staff, Christa Noland

Child: Ann Noland

Sibling: Fellow BMC student, Kenneth Noland

Sibling: Fellow BMC student, Massen Noland

Black Mountain College Project

Mary Emma Harris interviewed Harry and Christa in 1980 and the transcript is available from Appalachian State University under The Mary Emma Harris and Black Mountain College Project, Inc. Oral History collection.

Topics: Childhood in Asheville – reading about Albers in Literary Digest – Christa knowing BMC dietician – Christa role as BMC nurse – BMC community council – BMC education critique – Arthur Penn as director