John Urbain

John Julian Arthur Urbain was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1920. He moved with his parents to Detroit in 1922. Urbain, one of a number of students from Cass Technical High School in Detroit to enroll at Black Mountain for the 1946 winter quarter on the suggestion of his friend and fellow student, Ray Johnson. He remained through the 1947 fall semester.

Drafted into the U.S. Army in 1941, Urbain was an infantry corporal whose skill as an illustrator led him to create army training graphics and murals. Urbain’s most influential teacher was artist Josef Albers, who opened his eyes to new approaches to design, color, matière and collage that soon became the dominant perspective from which Urbain would create art throughout his life. J

ohn married fellow artist and Black Mountain College student, Elaine Schmitt in 1946. In 1950 the couple moved to Paris, France where John studied art at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and the Académie Julien. Urbain worked as art director for Philip Morris for more than twenty-five years, where he was instrumental in acquiring an outstanding corporate art collection.

Although Urbain is known for his collages, he made prints and worked with sumi ink. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Detroit, Houston and North Carolina Museum of Art, the Asheville Art Museum, and in numerous private collections and galleries in the US and abroad.

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

Relationships

Wife: Fellow BMC student, Elaine Schmitt

Asheville Art Museum Collection

Writings about Elaine can be seen in digitized college bulletins on Asheville Art Museum's collection website: collection.ashevilleart.org. They can be found by searching these accession numbers:

2009.22.02.29

2017.40.214 March 1946 bulletin, "Other GI’s, now this quarter, find various satisfactions in BMC life. John Urbain, who spent nearly 4 years in the service, likes the lack of compulsion and constraint in community life, the case of contacts between people, the chance for the individual to feel important in the group. Fed-up with the kind of instruction in art offered by the conventional college, John commends the method he finds here: “art students here don’t simulate the style of the teacher. The teacher gives a basic idea which is developed by the students. The teacher breaks down the student’s prejudices and tries to make him original.”"

2017.40.216 June 1946 bulletin, "The original plans that were approved by the army engineers were drawn up, after a month of surveying by Max Dehn, John Urbain and Harry Weitzer."

2017.40.039 March 1947 bulletin, "John Urbain, recently married to Elaine Schmitt, is with NW Ayer Advertising Company in Philadelphia."

Black Mountain College Project

Mary Emma Harris interviewed John 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: Pre-BMC art study – family background and immigration to the United States – Cass Technical High School and Cranbrook Academy – service inWorld War Two – hearing about BMC – Josef Albers classes – Max Dehn – M.C. Richards class – work program – Jean Varda’s Greek party – visits in local area – BMC students – Ruth Asawa – early work with N.W. Ayer – early post-BMC work in design and for magazines – Leo Lionni – Jean Varda – influence of BMC – FHA buildings – cut-out for granddaughter – discussion of BMC studies from Albers classes and Lionni’s classes – discussion of collages

Courses Taken

Winter 1945-1946: Drawing with Albers, Painting with Albers, Design with Albers, Problems of Philosophy with Dehn, Descriptive Geometry with Dehn.

Spring 1945-1946: Drawing with Albers, Design with Albers, Painting with Albers, Problems of Philosophy with Dehn, and Work Program

Summer Art Institute 1946: Color with Albers, Advertising Design with Burtin and Lionni

Fall 1946-1947: Shakespeare with M.C. Richards, Drawing with Bolotowsky, Design with Bolotowsky