Poseidon's Response, 1972
Lorna Blaine Halper (1924-2012) was born in the New York City area. While studying art at Columbia University she learned about Black Mountain College. Her parents opposed her attending the school until, Fannie Hillsmith a family friend, was invited to teach in the summer of 1945. Lorna was permitted to enroll in the summer of 1945 and remained at the college through the spring of 1948.
Halper studied art with Josef Albers at Black Mountain College. She developed an approach that combined the principles of Albers’s teachings with her own individualized use of line and. Many of her works include complex drawings that explore the relation between figure and ground. A motif in many of works that of the ""Spiral Man."" Halper began working with the Spiral Man, whose head and face take the form of a spiral, as a young girl and continued to incorporate it into many of her paintings, prints, drawings and sculpture throughout her long career.
At Black Mountain College she studied art with Josef Albers, Fannie Hillsmith, Lyonel Feininger, Robert Motherwell, Jean Varda and Ilya Bolotowsky. Halper became friends with students Ruth Asawa, Ray Johnson, Elaine Schmitt Urbain, Oli Sihvonen and others.
Halper studied art with Josef Albers at Black Mountain College. She developed an approach that combined the principles of Albers’s teachings with her own individualized use of line and. Many of her works include complex drawings that explore the relation between figure and ground. A motif in many of works that of the ""Spiral Man."" Halper began working with the Spiral Man, whose head and face take the form of a spiral, as a young girl and continued to incorporate it into many of her paintings, prints, drawings and sculpture throughout her long career.
At Black Mountain College she studied art with Josef Albers, Fannie Hillsmith, Lyonel Feininger, Robert Motherwell, Jean Varda and Ilya Bolotowsky. Halper became friends with students Ruth Asawa, Ray Johnson, Elaine Schmitt Urbain, Oli Sihvonen and others.
