Romare Bearden

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Romare Bearden (September 2, 1911 – March 12, 1988) was an American artist, writer, and songwriter. He is best known for his collages that tell stories about African-American life. He worked with many media, including painting, cartoons, and music.

Bearden was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and grew up in New York City and Pittsburgh. He moved during the Great Migration. His family valued education and culture: his mother helped lead the New York City Board of Education, and his father ran a grocery and played piano. He had Cherokee, Italian, and African roots.

He studied at Lincoln University, Boston University, and New York University, finishing in 1935. He also studied art at the Art Students League. Bearden supported himself by drawing political cartoons. His early paintings often showed life in the American South and were inspired by Mexican muralists like Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. He worked as a social worker in Harlem at times to support himself.

During World War II, Bearden served in the U.S. Army in Europe. After the war, he studied art and philosophy in Paris and traveled in Europe. His art began to focus on human values and unity in the Black community. In the 1950s he explored more abstract styles, but this would give way to collage as his defining form in the 1960s.

With the Civil Rights era, Bearden created large, colorful collages made from clipped magazine pictures and colored paper. He helped start the Spiral group in Harlem to discuss the role of Black artists in the movement. His 1964 Projections works were highly praised and helped establish him as a master of collage. Notable pieces include The Visitation (two Black women), Baptism in the Prevalence of Ritual, and Golgotha, a powerful abstract take on the Crucifixion. He also created The Return of Odysseus, showing Black characters in scenes from The Odyssey.

Bearden made significant public works, such as the Pittsburgh Recollections mural (installed in 1984) and City of Glass in a New York City subway station. He wrote music as well, co-writing the song Sea Breeze, recorded by Billy Eckstine and Dizzy Gillespie. With his wife Nanette, he founded the Bearden Foundation to support young artists.

In 1987 Bearden received the National Medal of Arts. He died in New York City in 1988 from bone cancer. The New York Times called him one of America’s leading artists and “the nation’s foremost collagist.” Bearden’s work remains influential and is celebrated in museums, galleries, and public art projects around the world.