| Bearden, Romare (1912-1988) , American artist, whose paintings and collages depict many aspects of the African American experience. Bearden experimented with a variety of forms and styles over the years, and his work reflects his interest in the 20th-century art movements of cubism, social realism, and abstraction. An early Bearden collage, Prevalence of Ritual: Baptism (1964, The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.), uses images from magazines, newspapers, and photographs and is representative of what became his signature style. The faces express past and present through the representation of African masks for the upper portion and of generic modern personalities for the lower portion. Born Fred Howard Romare Bearden in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden grew up primarily in the Harlem district of New York City. His mother’s work as New York editor for the Chicago Defender newspaper and as a social activist brought Bearden into contact with the writers, artists, and musicians of the Harlem Renaissance, a flowering of black intellectual life during the 1920s. Bearden’s life-long interest in African American art and and in jazz and blues music dates from this period. He studied at New York University, receiving his B.A. degree in 1935. While a student, he drew cartoons for the university’s humor magazine, Medley, and submitted political cartoons and drawings to such publications as the Baltimore Afro-American, Collier’s Magazine, and The Saturday Evening Post. In the late 1930s Bearden attended the Art Students League where he worked with German American expressionist artist George Grosz. During the late 1950s and early 1960s Bearden began experimenting with abstraction. His technique involved applying broad areas of color in various thicknesses on rice paper and then gluing the painted papers on canvas, usually in several layers. He then tore sections of the paper away and added more paper until a motif or image presented itself. He completed the work by painting additional elements. Blue is the Smoke of War, White the Bones of Men (1960?, Collection of Beatrice and Harry Henderson, Croton-on-Hudson, New York) is representative of this period. Gray and bluish tones dominate the composition and merge with reds, browns, and yellows; splashes of white appear throughout. Bearden produced some of his most innovative works in the late 1960s. Often incorporating life-sized imagery, these works combine collage with acrylics, oils, mosaics, and black and white photographs. During the 1970s and 1980s his subject matter continued to emphasize both African American myth and everyday experience. The small collage Family (1988, National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.) served as the model for a much larger piece made of ceramic tiles, which is displayed at the Joseph P. Addabbo Federal building in the New York City borough of Queens. Bearden’s long-term association with the island of Saint Martin in the West Indies, where his wife had family, can be seen in works throughout his career. Pepper Jelly Lady (1980, National Museum of American Art), a colorful lithograph, depicts a woman selling her pepper jelly in front of a walled estate. A wide border of single-color line drawings sets off the vibrant central image. Bearden coauthored several books on African American artists including Six Black Masters of American Art (1972) and A History of African-American Artists (1992). In 1987 Bearden was awarded the National Medal of Arts by United States president Ronald Reagan. |
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