Soul Visions: Romare Bearden

On my first blog, I posted on artist Romare Bearden (1911-1988). He did really unique multi-media collage paintings, with lots of different textures and colors. The first one I saw was "Noah, Third Day" (1972, often just called "Noah's Ark") - at the High Museum in Atlanta. Still have the poster I bought there back in 1988 or so.


I like some of his art you can find pretty easily, which are mostly Jazz scenes. Beyond the jazz pieces, he also had a modernist take on other traditional black art subjects - the rural South, urban poverty, African life and myth. Then there's the early Cubist Jesus of the '40s, and the later Black Jesus of the '60s. His page at Negro Artist is exhaustive, and gives the bigger picture of his talents. Bearden appears to be pretty well-respected in the art world, but not a name you hear all too often. In his honor, I made a little collage of the cooler new stuff I'd found.

[Click on each section to see it all blown up.]





Ok, almost done here... Just some more info on Bearden.