Romare Bearden 1911 —1988

ROMARE BEARDEN 1911-1988

"Such devises...as distortion of scale and proportion... And abstract coloration,
are the very means through which I try to achieve a more personal expression.
I paint of my people, not as propaganda, but as dispassionately as
Breughel painted the life of the Flemish people of his day."

Working in a modernist style, Romare Bearden expressed thru collage the complexities and uniqueness of his being in American Society.  Bearden is the 'dean' of American black artists whose work reflects the excitement of both city life and life in the countryside.  No matter where Bearden lived and worked, he somehow arranged to be near trains, bodies of water or birds. Bearden felt that there was a commonality, or link between trains, the excitement of life and the changing range of life's experiences. "  Some of Bearden's most noteable work done of sites outside the city, was of Mecklenberg County."  Memories is a major work by the artist, it puts large size, collage, and a train together in a Mechlenburg County work.

Bearden exhibited at Cordier and Warren  1959-1961 and then at Cordier & Ekstrom through 1988, NY a gallery of consummate taste and independent vision.  Those who exhibited along with Bearden, at the gallery were Dubuffet, Matta, Noguchi, Duchamp, Lindner and Ossorio.   Before joining Cordier & Ekstrom, Bearden showed  his works with Robert Motherwell, William Baziotes and Carl Holty.  

Bearden's work embodies the black experience in 20th-century America. The influences which inspired Bearden throughout his lifetime were many and varied. He grew up in New York during the Harlem Renaissance in a household regularly visited by jazz greats like Duke Ellington and Fats Waller, he had a career in songwriting in the 1930s and by the 40's he had begun creating collages. Throughout his career, his inspiration was music, Southern life and black culture.  

Bearden's technique was time-consuming, yet effective. He created his collages on masonite boards which were laid flat on a work table surrounded by scraps of paper, various oils and temperas, inks, synthetic polymer paints and brushes. Romare Bearden presented black life on a grand and epic scale in a style that was vibrant and poignant. He was also the recipient of the Medal of the State of North Carolina and the National Medal of the Arts.

A major retrospective of the Artist's work was shown at the National Gallery of American Art, Washington DC in 2004 and will move to the High Museum, Atlanta and the Whitney Museum of American Art later in the year, accompanied by the exhibition catalogue by Ruth Fine (Curator, National Gallery of Art) .  Bearden's works are represented in 114 books including, Robert Hughes, American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America and Gail Levin, Twentieth Century American Painting: Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection and in 42 major museums including, The Hirshhorn Museum and The National Gallery in Washington DC, Art Institute of Chicago, Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, The Mint Museum, The Newark Museum, The Metropolitan Museum, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, The Neuberger Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art. 

Six monographs on the artist have been written; including works by Ruth Fine, Curator of The National Gallery; McCleary Bunch, Myron Schwartzman, Alexandra  Anderson-Spivy, Thomas R Toperzer and the Studio Museum in Harlem.  As well, Bearden's works have been recorded and discussed in books of American Art such as: Sidra Stich, An Americanization in Modern Art '50s & 60s; Gail Levin, Twentieth Century American Painting from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection; Taylor Littleton, Painting, Politics and Cultural Confrontation; David Dridkell, A Postmodernist View; Robert Hughes, The Epic History of Art in America;  as well as all books specifically on African American Art of the 20^th century.

An important source for modern and contemporary American & European Art in East Hampton, New York & worldwide, Vered Gallery's spectacular wide-ranging inventory consists of unique paintings, drawings, large & small scale sculpture, monotypes, prints and photographs  by Ansel Adams, Milton Avery, Richard Avedon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Romare Bearden, Fernando Botero, Cartier-Bresson, Marc Chagall, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Willem De Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, Thomas Eakins, Childe Hassam, David Hockney, Winslow Homer, Wolf Kahn, Jeff Koons, Fernand Leger, Roy Lichtenstein, Man Ray, Thomas Moran, Henry Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Cindy Sherman, Charles Sheeler, Bert Stern, Alfred Stieglitz, Andy Warhol, Carleton E Watkins, Tom Wesselmann and Andrew Wyeth.

To bookmark Vered Gallery website: http://www.veredart.com

View synoptic biography below.