Description
Book SynopsisOne of the most important and underappreciated visual artists of the twentieth century, Romare Bearden started as a cartoonist during his college years and emerged as a painter during the 1930s, at the tail end of the Harlem Renaissance and in time to be part of a significant community of black artists supported by the WPA. Though light-skinned and able to pass, Bearden embraced his African heritage, choosing to paint social realist canvases of African-American life. After World War II, he became one of a handful of black artists to exhibit in a private gallery-the commercial outlet that would form the core of the American art world''s post-war marketplace. Rejecting Abstract Expressionism, he lived briefly in Paris. After he suffered a nervous breakdown, Bearden returned to New York, turning to painting just as the civil rights movement was gaining ground with the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education and the Montgomery bus boycott. By the time of the March on Washington in 1963, Bearden
Trade ReviewHer adept weaving of biography and art history is richly detailed, a scholarly life's work. * Amy M. Mooney *
An American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden is a fascinating book, lovingly detailed and closely illustrating how its subject had to struggle, both as an artist and as a black person, to establish a place in the history of art in America. * Jim Burns, The Penniless Press *
Table of ContentsIntroduction Part I: Terms of the Debate Chapter I: Origins Chapter II: Harlem: The Promised Land Chapter III: The Evolution of a Race Man Part II: The Negro Artist's Dilemma Chapter IV: The Making of American Art Chapter V: Fame and Exile: 1945-1950 Chapter VI: A Voyage of Discovery: 1950-1960 Part III: The Prevalence of Ritual Chapter VII: Prevalence of Ritual: Part I Chapter VIII: Prevalence of Ritual: Part II Chapter IX: The Public Romare Bearden Epilogue: The Bearden Legacy
