I. Romare Bearden (1911-1988)

Romare Bearden (1911-1988)

 

I. Romare Bearden (1911-1988)
“Art Should be understood and loved by the people. ”
 
Since the first blacks were brought to Virginia in 1619, just 12 years after the founding of Jamestown the history of African American has been started. It already passed almost four centuries for Africans getting into the members of American, but their history including their art history has been treated as a minor in the history of America, even though lots of changes were made now.

Joshua Johnston was the first documented African American artist in the history of American Art. He was famous for a portrait painting in the early nineteenth century. Since then diverse Afro-American artists appeared in American history of art such as Julian Hudson (c. 1831-1844), Robert S. Duncanson (1821-1872), and the most distinguished African American artist who worked in the nineteenth century, Henry Ossawa Tanner, and so forth .
 
Romare Bearden is one of the most important artists in African American art and even in American Modern Art. He was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1911. And he moved to the North with his family in his childhood. Bearden studied at Boston University. He played a role as a baseball player there, but after realizing the limit of the black and the change of his interest he transferred and got his B.S from New York University . During and after his college he has explored diverse experiences as an artist, social service worker, soldier, and so forth.

 

In his college and after graduation he created several cartoons in a manner of social realism . After this period Bearden worked as a soldier in the U.S army from 1942 to 1945 and he made Passion of Christ series mostly in 1945 to 1946.
In 1950 he went to the Sorbonne, France to study philosophy and during this period he met and befriended many French and American peoples including Georges Braque, an inventor of Cubism. I think it was one of the most important events for Bearden to meet Braque in Paris. After his return from Paris he made a selection a collage as his main form of art, though he made several abstract ｅxpressionistic paintings. And he freed his soul in 1988.

 

It would be impossible to understand fully and exactly the life of Romare Bearden and his meaning of art within a short period of time. But, in this essay, I would like to explore and research the meaning of his art, and the relationship between his ethnicity and his works.

ⓒ 모암문고 www.moamcollection.org