Romare Bearden: Southern Recollections celebrates the nearly half-century career of Charlotte-born Bearden at the centennial of his birth. Born in 1911 on Graham Street, Bearden’s childhood memories of Charlotte and the South gave inspiration to his art throughout his life. This landmark exhibition demonstrates Bearden’s mastery and illustrates his explorations of the South through more than 70 works of art drawn from public and private collections. Organized by The Mint Museum, the exhibition will travel nationally and is accompanied by a fully-illustrated exhibition catalogue. In addition, the Family Guide and Gallery Guide created by Mint Museum staff may be downloaded.
Participate in the MEMORY TRAIN video talkback project! (No longer active)
Have a web cam? Want to create and upload your own video related to the exhibition? Select the Memory Train link to answer questions about your own recollections, and follow instructions on how to upload your video. Participate in Memory Train: Celebrating Community Through the Power of Remembrance!
Bearden on Bearden
Interview with Bearden, 1979
The interview shown below was conducted just prior to Bearden's exhibition at The Mint Museum in 1980 and is referenced in his introduction. Bearden's 1980 retrospective at the Mint was a landmark exhibition for the museum. This video is also being shown in the Bank of America Resource Center adjacent to the exhibition.
Romare Bearden Interview, Inside New York's Art World, Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel Collection, 1976-1999,
Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
Romare Bearden Papers, 1937-1982, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Bearden's personal papers are available digitally from the Archives of American Art website and include over 2,000 images of photographs, documents, correspondence, and sketches.
Bearden talks about themes and symbolism in his work in this video from SFMoMA.
Bearden visited Charlotte during the Mint Museum exhibition Romare Bearden: 1970-1980 and among other activities, visited Charlotte Country Day School and spoke with the students there. The students wrote thank you notes to Bearden following the visit. Below are images of the letter Bearden wrote in reply. The original letter is on display at Charlotte Country Day School. Many thanks to them for providing us with a copy.
An African American Album, the Black Experience in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County published by the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County in 1992, contains images of African-American life in Charlotte before 1950. Included are images of Richard P. Bearden and RosaCatherine Kennedy, Bearden's grand-parents, and the family of Dr. James A. Pethel, the doctor who attended Bearden's birth.
Romare Bearden was born at his great-grandparent's house at 401 South Graham St. in Charlotte's Third Ward neighborhood. See the location today on Google Earth. Even after his family moved North, Bearden would return to Charlotte in the summer to stay with his grandparents.
When he was a boy, Bearden played on the steps of the United States Mint on Trade St. In 1936, the building was moved to Randolph Road and was established as the Mint Museum of Art.
Mary Curtis talks about Bearden and Charlotte - the exhibitions and celebrations - on Fox News Rising and wrote this article for SouthPark magazine.
Moving to New York
Bearden's parents moved to New York City when he was just a toddler. They were just one family out of over three million African-Americans who moved from the rural South to the industrial North between 1911 and 1930. This event was know as
The African-American press played major role in the migration. The site The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords from PBS provides an excellent introduction to the newspapers and the journalists, of which Bearden's mother was one.
Bessye Bearden
College-educated Bessye J. Bearden became a prominent figure in Harlem society and New York politics. She died in 1943.
The Afro American newspaper of Baltimore is making their archives available online. Searching "Bearden" at http://www.afro.com/afroblackhistoryarchives/ reveals over a hundred references to the activities of Bessye Bearden and her son, Romare.
Bessye was the New York correspondent for The Chicago Defender, one of the nation's most influential african american weekly newspapers,for several years. Their archives are available here.
Public domain photograph from the Library of Congress' American Memory
Harlem Renaissance
Bearden grew up in the cultural explosion of 1920s Harlem. The Bearden home became a meeting place for Harlem Renaissance luminaries including writer Langston Hughes, painter Aaron Douglas, and musician Duke Ellington.
Influenced by these experiences, Bearden studied art in the 1930s, worked as a cartoonist, and became a member of the Harlem Artists Guild which devoted itself to sharpening the focus of black artists on issues of racism, poverty, and unemployment. The Guild was started in 1935 by sculptor Augusta Savage.
Charles Alston, a relative of Bearden also from Charlotte, created a community art program, the Harlem Art Workshop. Studio 306, or just “306,” became the gathering place for artists, writers, and musicians in Harlem and the heart of the second Harlem Renaissance. Both Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden studied with Alston at 306.
In 1963, Bearden formed the Spiral Group, composed of African American artists who sought to make a contribution to the civil rights movement. Other artists in the group included Hale Woodruff, Norman Lewis, Felrath Hines, Alsvin Hollingsworth, Reginald Gammon, Merton Simpson, Richard Mayhew, William Majors, Earl Miller, Perry Ferguson, Calvin Douglass and Emma Amos. It was during this time Bearden developed his collage technique.
Invitation for the first Spiral exhibition, Works in Black and White, in 1965. Bearden had suggested the exhibition's black-and-white theme because it comprised both socio-political and formal concerns.
Curator from Birmingham Museum of Art Emma Hanna discusses the exhibition, Spiral: Perspectives on an African-American Art Collective.
Until his retirement in 1969, Bearden worked as a social worker with the New York City Department of Social Services specializing in cases within the gypsy community, working on his art at night and on weekends.
In 1964 Bearden was appointed the first art director of the newly established Harlem Cultural Council, a prominent African-American advocacy group, and served as an active spokesman and writer on artistic and social issues.
He was involved in founding several important art venues, such as The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Cinque Gallery which supported young minority artists.
Learning about Bearden
The Romare Bearden Foundation, established in 1990, was established to preserve and perpetuate the artist's legacy. It sponsors symposiums, exhibitions and publications, provides scholarships, and its extensive website hosts numerous resources on Bearden and his work, including an
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art features a multimedia interactive created to accompany The Art of Romare Bearden exhibition.
The Romare Bearden Legacy Trunk, a portable trunk containing interactive resource materials geared for K-5th grade, is available for two-week loans from The Mint Museum. Contact Joel Smeltzer at mailto:joel.smeltzer@mintmuseum.org for more information and to reserve.
Click here to learn more about Bearden's art and selected collages from Romare Bearden: Southern Recollections.Link is no longer available.
The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition Romare Bearden: The Prevalence of Ritual ran from March 25 - June 7, 1971 and was the first retrospective of his work. A press release about the exhibition may be viewed here.
Romare Bearden 1970-1980 was The Mint Museum's first major Bearden exhibition. The exhibition focused primarily on Bearden's collages, which exploded into full expression in the seventies. Following this exhibition, Romare Bearden in Black and White: The Photomontage of 1964 was shown in 1998, which provided insight into Bearden's earliest uses of collage. The most recent exhibition at The Mint Museum was Recollections of Charlotte's Own: Romare Beardenin 2002.
In 2003, the retrospective The Art of Romare Bearden was exhibited at the National Gallery of Art. This exhibition, the most comprehensive retrospective of Bearden's work ever, explored the complexity and scope of Bearden's art.
Exhibition catalogues for Romare Bearden 1970-1980 and Charlotte's Own: Romare Bearden
Selected Print Resources from The Mint Museum Library
Bearden, Romare 1911-1988. Bearden, Romare: Artist File. Contains newspaper, magazine, and journal articles including information on past exhibitions and Bearden's own publications from the 1940s to the present.
Co-authored with Harry Henderson, the book details the lives of major black artists and is arranged chronologically and by artistic similarities. Although there is no specific section of Bearden and his work, he is mentioned in reference to the artists included as influenced by and influential to them.
Bearden, Romare. Conjuring Bearden.Durham, NC: Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, 2006.
The catalogue for the exhibition of the same name includes essays by Albert Murray and Dore Ashton, reproductions of the images in the exhibition, and a complete list of all Bearden's works produced from 1970 through 1980.
The catalogue for the exhibition, includes contributions by Carla M. Hanzal, curator of the exhibition; Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore, Jae Emerling, Leslie King-Hammond,
Mary Lee Cortlett, Ruth Fine and Myron Schwartzman. Also includes color images and a chronological list of works in the exhibition.
Published to accompany the 2003 retrospective at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, it includes examples of Bearden's works; collages, photostats, paintings, book illustrations, murals, and his only known sculpture, as well as essays by Ruth Fine, the curator of the exhibition, among others.
Greenberg, Jan. Romare Bearden: Collage of Memories. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2003. This brief biography for children is told through Bearden's art, with short paragraphs describing each image.
Recollections of Charlotte's Own Romare Bearden. Charlotte: Mint Museum of Art, 2002. The exhibition catalogue includes recollections of Bearden by David C. Driskell, Herb Jackson and Laura Grosch, and Jerald L. Melberg.
Schwartzman, Myron. Romare Bearden, His Life and Art. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1990. An extensive biography and a thorough examination of Bearden's art and influences. Schwartzman includes his discussions with Bearden about his art, gallery shows and major exhibitions; including Romare Bearden 1970-1980.
Stewart, Frank. Romare Bearden. San Francisco: Pomegranate, 2004. Images of Bearden working in his studios, lecturing, at exhibition openings, including the Romare Bearden 1970-1980: An Exhibition at The Mint Museum, and photographs of friends and family.
Other print resources can be accessed through MARCO, the Mint Art Research Catalog Online.
Romare Bearden:Southern Recollections is made possible with generous support from Duke Energy and Wells Fargo. Additional funding is provided by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Organized by The Mint Museum.
