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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
It takes a special kind of book to paint the full picture of Romaire Bearden's artistic life. While quietly wrestling with what it meant to be a black American artist at mid-century, Bearden opened himself to a world of cultural influences. He found inspiration in Benin bronzes and paintings by Duccio; the Bible and Buddhism; The Odyssey and the blues; contemporary urban life and the rural lore of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. The Art of Romaire Bearden offers a wise and thoughtful assessment of Bearden in the social context of his life and times. In the graceful lead essay, Ruth E. Fine traces Bearden's career from its beginnings in the mid-1930s, when—as a newly-minted New York University grad—he toiled by day as a social worker and painted at night. Bearden's best-known works are his Dada-influenced photomontages, begun in the mid-1960s, which created a visual equivalent for a disjunctive era of triumph and tragedy for African-Americans. His ou! tput also included stunning book illustrations and costume designs, political cartoons, incisive essays about the role of the black artist and even popular songs. More than 200 color illustrations display Bearden’s coloristic wizardry as a master of painted collage and lyrical landscape. The book accompanies an exhibition assembled by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (through Jan. 4, 2004) which travels to San Francisco, Dallas, New York and Atlanta. —Cathy Curtis
From Publishers Weekly
Published in conjunction with the National Gallery's recent retrospective, this oversized volume offers a look at Romare Bearden's (1911-1988) creative history, critical essays on his work and origins, and plates of his paintings, sketches and vibrant signature collages. Fine, a curator at the National Gallery, sketches Bearden's biography swiftly but with detail, describing the North Carolina native's family life during the Harlem Renaissance in New York (their circle included Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington and Paul Robeson), his influential early friendships and the political cartoons with which he began his artistic career. A handful of thoughtful essays by art history scholars and curators piece together Bearden's influences, reading habits and the range of responses his work evoked. They emphasize Bearden's sense of rootedness in Western art and the "selective appropriation of canonical images" that became essential in his expression of African-Americans' complex identity and experience. Bearden's works are juxtaposed here with those of other ages and places-from Renaissance painter Duccio di Buoninsegna to Impressionist Degas, and from African sculpture to works by Picasso and Matisse. The "bibliophile" Bearden was an avid reader and writer whose lifelong scholarship informed his reflections on art. The written record he left behind, both in published essays and unpublished letters, "affords a rare opportunity to consider art as a result of thinking and reasoning" instead of romantically springing forth from the "sensitive soul's churning depths." This is a discerning retrospective that will appeal most to those interested in understanding Bearden's artistic inspiration and intellectual breadth. 224 color photos, 86 b&w illustrations.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
It takes a special kind of book to paint the full picture of Romaire Bearden's artistic life. While quietly wrestling with what it meant to be a black American artist at mid-century, Bearden opened himself to a world of cultural influences. He found inspiration in Benin bronzes and paintings by Duccio; the Bible and Buddhism; The Odyssey and the blues; contemporary urban life and the rural lore of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. The Art of Romaire Bearden offers a wise and thoughtful assessment of Bearden in the social context of his life and times. In the graceful lead essay, Ruth E. Fine traces Bearden's career from its beginnings in the mid-1930s, when—as a newly-minted New York University grad—he toiled by day as a social worker and painted at night. Bearden's best-known works are his Dada-influenced photomontages, begun in the mid-1960s, which created a visual equivalent for a disjunctive era of triumph and tragedy for African-Americans. His ou! tput also included stunning book illustrations and costume designs, political cartoons, incisive essays about the role of the black artist and even popular songs. More than 200 color illustrations display Bearden’s coloristic wizardry as a master of painted collage and lyrical landscape. The book accompanies an exhibition assembled by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (through Jan. 4, 2004) which travels to San Francisco, Dallas, New York and Atlanta. —Cathy Curtis
From Publishers Weekly
Published in conjunction with the National Gallery's recent retrospective, this oversized volume offers a look at Romare Bearden's (1911-1988) creative history, critical essays on his work and origins, and plates of his paintings, sketches and vibrant signature collages. Fine, a curator at the National Gallery, sketches Bearden's biography swiftly but with detail, describing the North Carolina native's family life during the Harlem Renaissance in New York (their circle included Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington and Paul Robeson), his influential early friendships and the political cartoons with which he began his artistic career. A handful of thoughtful essays by art history scholars and curators piece together Bearden's influences, reading habits and the range of responses his work evoked. They emphasize Bearden's sense of rootedness in Western art and the "selective appropriation of canonical images" that became essential in his expression of African-Americans' complex identity and experience. Bearden's works are juxtaposed here with those of other ages and places-from Renaissance painter Duccio di Buoninsegna to Impressionist Degas, and from African sculpture to works by Picasso and Matisse. The "bibliophile" Bearden was an avid reader and writer whose lifelong scholarship informed his reflections on art. The written record he left behind, both in published essays and unpublished letters, "affords a rare opportunity to consider art as a result of thinking and reasoning" instead of romantically springing forth from the "sensitive soul's churning depths." This is a discerning retrospective that will appeal most to those interested in understanding Bearden's artistic inspiration and intellectual breadth. 224 color photos, 86 b&w illustrations.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
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- Art of Engagement: Visual Politics in California and Beyond by Peter Selz in Back Matter