Romare Bearden Essay

Romare Bearden was an African-American artist whose art reflected his heritage. He was born in Charlotte, North Carolina and eventually moved to New York City, where he attended New York University. He studied many subjects throughout his life, but art was consistently a part of his life. He expressed his love for the arts through many outlets. Bearden took part in writing jazz songs, illustrating and writing books and he even was a political cartoonist. Throughout his career Bearden took pride in establishing and supporting minority artists. He and his wife created the Bearden Foundation to support emerging artists. Today he leaves his legacy behind as “one of the most important American artists of the 20th century” ().
Bearden attended several different universities such as Lincoln University, the nation’s first Historically Black College and Boston University. Ultimately, he decided to attend and graduate from NYU in 1935 where he studied art, education, science and mathematics. Although he graduated with a science and education degree, he found ways to continue his artistic studies. He was a political cartoonist for an African-American newspaper called The Medley. From the 1930s through the 1960s, Romare worked as a social worker in New York City (DC Moore Gallery). Although
this took up most of his time, he would continue to work on his art during his free time.
Bearden was a creative artist.
He used different materials such as fabric, magazines and newspapers blended with paint to create semi-abstract collages. His style was inspired by Cubism. “Bearden arranged his collages on paper or board and then glued them down” (National Gallery of Art). Most of his work depicts a story about African-American life and/or culture. “His works’ complexity lies in their poetic abstraction, in which layered fragments of color and pattern evoke the rhythms, textures, and mysteries of a people’s experience” (Britannica Articles). The way Bearden layered different materials told a story about the life African-Americans lived and what their culture is all
about.
The work of other artists often inspired Bearden. With inspiration for other artists and his own ideas, Romare was able to create something new. One of his pieces is an African-American twist on Homer’s, The Odyssey. The Black Odyssey, as Bearden called it, “created an artistic bridge between classical mythology and African-American culture” (Columbia University). Similarly, his other pieces of art have common themes of African-American life and traditions, stories from religion, history, literature, myth, blue singers, jazz musicians and landscapes. Growing up during the Harlem Renaissance was very influential for Bearden. He developed a love for all things jazz and often listened to jazz and blues music to inspire and set the mood when working on his art (National Gallery of Art).
Throughout his career, Bearden was heavily involved in many art organizations which helped artists who were minorities. His life's work was to support African-American artists like him. He founded several art venues, such as The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Cinque Gallery. Both venues were established to support young and emerging artist. Bearden himself was an African-American man whose skin color was white. Therefore, he was able to see the injustices in society towards African-Americans like an outsider looking in. This is what most inspired his art work.