Romare Bearden was born on September 2, 1911 in Charlotte, North Carolina and died in 1988 after a long and varied career. Always drawn to many interests and influences, Bearden often used the medium of collage to create fascinating perspectives of both static calm and motion.
The Art of Romare Bearden
Carroll Moore's DVD The Art of Romare Bearden (2002) offers an excellent introductory glimpse into the life and mind of the artist, cartoonist, writer—and even successful musical composer. Presented by the National Gallery of Art, The Art of Romare Bearden features narration by actors Morgan Freeman and Danny Glover, along with a lush yet never overwhelming jazz score and vivid backdrops of Bearden's work.
The Art of Romare Bearden begins with the artist's birth in North Carolina and ultimate migration north with his parents. Bearden grew up in both New York and Pittsburgh, and the Bearden home in Harlem was a culturally stimulating place, with musician Duke Ellington and poet Langston Hughes among the family's circle of visitors. Bearden initially received a degree in Education from New York University, but his desire to create visual art eventually became more compelling and he took courses at the Art Students League with German Dadaist and Expressionist George Grosz. Grosz's own work involved the use of photo-collage and assemblage, and this would have a pivotal influence on Bearden.
What The Art of Romare Bearden captures best is Bearden’s sense of curiosity and expansiveness, and how this kaleidoscopic mindset enriched his various creative phases. Great classical artists meld with Japanese motifs, quilting, or primitive African sculpture. Paul Cézanne’s circa 1890 The Card Players influenced a 1982 Bearden painting of a similar yet decidedly different nature, while in later years, purer Matisse-like colors and forms emerged but still remained wholly Bearden‘s own. Visions of the urban hustle of Harlem and Pittsburgh alternated with memories of North Carolina and the culture of the rural South, as well as Bearden’s time spent in the Caribbean landscape of his wife Nanette’s native island of St. Martin.
Diverse Legacy
The Art of Romare Bearden further includes interviews with Bearden friend and colleague Albert Murray, musician Wynton Marsalis (for whom Bearden created the CD/album cover J Mood), and art historians Ruth Fine and Richard Powell. Bearden’s opinion on how the “Negro artist” should just be regarded as “an artist” is discussed, along with Bearden’s involvement in the Civil Rights movement, his various commissioned works and his retrospectives and honors.
On-line counterparts can be found at the National Gallery of Art’s The Art of Romare Bearden, which provides parallel details of Bearden’s technique, subject matter and a catalogue of images, and at the estate of the artist‘s own Romare Bearden Foundation. Musically, the genius of Bearden lives on in his classic jazz composition "Seabreeze," recorded in 1954 by Billy Eckstine and later included on Branford Marsalis’ Romare Bearden Revealed.
A major commemoration for Bearden’s 100th will be made in his birthplace of Charlotte, North Carolina with the naming of an over five acre park campus in his honor, while the United States Postal Service plans to issue a formal series of Bearden stamps in late September 2011. Additionally, the Romare Bearden Foundation has created a special website to mark the 2011-2012 year-long period of special events for this special centennial milestone.
Bearden’s never-ending collage of life was one of inspiration, intelligence and sharp-eyed wonder, truly showing how, as he himself said: "If you’re any kind of artist you make a miraculous journey and you come back and make some statements in shapes of colors of where you were."
Where Bearden was is well worth noting and celebrating in 2011 and beyond.
