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Works by and about Romare Bearden
The Art of Romare Bearden: The Prevalence of Ritual (1973)
/
History of African American Artists,1792 to Present (1993)
Six Black Masters of American Art (1972) /
I Live in Music (1994) /
Memory and Metaphor: The Art of Romare-Bearden-1940-1987
(1991)
Romare Bearden (2004) /
H. Pippim (1976) /
The Painter's Mind: A Study of the Relations of Structure and
Space in Painting (1969)
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About Romare Bearden, Artist
By Amin Sharif Romare Bearden has been called by American art
critics Myron Schwarzman “the foremost American artist who
portrayed the African American experience through the language
of narrative and metaphor.” Born in Charlotte, North Carolina
in 1921, Bearden’s family moved early in his life to Harlem,
New York. It would be there that Bearden’s social activist
parents would entertain in their home the most notable writers,
musicians, and artists of the Harlem Renaissance. It was through
these historic figures and his family’s deep concern for
social reform that Bearden would inherit both his political and
artistic sensibilities.
Not just an artist, Romare Bearden was a multi-talented
genius. He played one year of professional baseball in Boston,
played in jazz bands, and even composed music. Bearden’s composition Sea
Breeze was recorded by both Billy Eckstein and Tito Puente.
And, Bearden also designed sets for Alvin Alley’s Dance
Company. His early artistic work was to find its way into
publications such as The
Baltimore Afro-American, Colliers, and the
Saturday Day Evening Post.
Romare Bearden was a highly educated man. He attended New
York University graduating with a degree in mathematics. After
serving in the military, Bearden studied philosophy in Paris.
Eventually, Bearden returned to the United States and obtained a
graduate degree in social work from Columbia University in 1966.
In his lifetime, Bearden was to receive five honorary degrees
and the prestigious President’s National Medal of Art in 1988.
Always believing in the social responsibility of the artist,
Bearden formed the Spiral Group composed of African American
artist in 1963. The Spiral Group sought to make a contribution
to the Civil Rights Movement that was at its apex at this time.
It was during this time that Bearden developed his famous
“collage technique.” The technique “represented a
stylistic breakthrough” for Bearden. And it would be a
technique that Bearden would refine throughout his life. This
collage technique--called by its creator
“photomontage”--consisted of clippings from popular
magazines, black and white photography, and pieces of
Bearden’s art. The result of Bearden’s photomontage was
often startling, sometimes mystical, sometimes socially
sensitive imagery.
Though Bearden complains in his essay
"The Negro Artist and Modern Art" that Negro artists had developed
nothing “original” akin to spirituals and jazz, Bearden’s
photomontage technique, as well as his paintings, would place
him far beyond any such criticism. Bearden following his own
advice in using local settings created magnificent works. It was
said of his work Bayou
Fever that invoked “African heritage rooted strongly in
Louisiana and about the African Diaspora in the Caribbean and
North America.”
It was not only locale that made Bearden’s work so
interesting. Found in this artist’s work are a deep
appreciation for the “ancient myths and traditional ritual”
embedded in African and African American society. In addition to
these unique factors, we find that Bearden is not afraid to
place the seal of his own symbolism on his work. We find all of
these themes present in Bearden’s Prevalence
of Ritual series. Perhaps the most famous work of this
series is Bearden’s Prodigal
Son based on the New Testament story. James Weldon Johnson
included the same tale in his famous collection of sermons God’s
Trombone.
Not only are traditional ritual and ancient myth essential in
Bearden’s work, we also find jazz and the blues themes
represented on his canvases.
Indeed, many critics assert that “jazz is the aesthetic
pulse” of Bearden’s work. Bearden, we know, completed some
“illustrations” based on the subject for an “unrealized”
book inspired by the 1961 movie Paris
Blues. One might recall that the movie starred Paul Newman,
Joane Woodward, Sidney Poiter, and Diahann Carol. The musical
score of the movie was provided by the great jazz composer Duke
Ellington. And the movie also included a cameo appearance by
Louis Armstrong. By the way, Paris
Blues was not the only movie that Bearden was to be
involved, he painted some twenty-two watercolors for the New
York scenes of John Cassavette’s film Gloria.
Among Bearden’s many works on jazz and blues are his Le
Jazz, Out of Chorus, and Louisiana
Serenade.
In closing, we must touch on the only criticism launched
against Bearden’s work that is his preference for “social
realism.” Bearden says that it was when he joined the
“Artist Students League” studying under George Grosz that he
began to include “social commentary” within his art. But one
must remember that almost from birth, Bearden was exposed to
social protest-- if not by his activist parents, then most
certainly by the Negro intellectuals that visited his home. But
the fact is that Bearden’s works are never harmed, but are
only enhanced, by his keen eye and acknowledgement of the
suffering of the black and poor in which he came in contact.
Indeed, in such works as the Factory
Workers, Bearden give humanity and dignity to his fellow
Negro--a value too often denied the Negro within American
society. If this be the only fault in Bearden’s work, then it
is one that is more than acceptable to those who have come to
love this genius and his great artistic accomplishments. Bearden
died in 1988 after a full and productive life. * *
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updated 21 December 2007 |
