Biography |
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Bearden attributed his early artistic ambition to a childhood friend in
Pittsburgh. There, a boy name Eugene introduced Romare to the drawings
he made of the brothel where he lived with his mother. When Romare's grandmother
saw the drawings and learned about Eugene's circumstances, she immediately
brought the boy to live with her at the boardinghouse. Sadly, Eugene died
about a year later. More than fifty years after Eugene's death, Bearden
would pay tribute to this early formative experience. Another early source of inspiration for the artist was his encounter with the sculptor Augusta Savage, with whom he spent time as a teenager. In Bearden's words, she was "a flesh and blood artist with a studio which we were welcome to use as a workshop, or even just to hang out in. She was open, free, resisted the usual conventions of the time, and lived for her art, thinking of success only in terms of how well her sculptures turned out." In 1935 Bearden graduated from New York University with a degree in education and took night classes led by German artist George Grosz, at the Art Students League. That same year, he also became a caseworker for the New York City Department of Social Services. Bearden would not completely retire from this position until 1969, spending a portion of his career working with newly emigrated gypsies from Eastern Europe. Bearden's early images, made in the late 1940s, present subjects from his wide-ranging interest in literature and religion. He treated the Passion of Christ, Federico García Lorca's poem "Lament for a Bullfighter," François Rabelais' social satire Gargantua and Pantagruel, and Homer's epics. Stylistically, these works are abstract and figural, gestural and brightly colored. The images are recognizable but fractured, rotated, and boldly outlined. From 1942 to 1945 Bearden served in the United States Army. In 1950, supported by the GI Bill, he traveled to Paris and studied at the Sorbonne. He also visited Italy and Spain. Throughout his career as an artist, Bearden would seek inspiration from and intellectual engagement with the masters, past and present, of European art. Duccio, Giotto, Picasso, and Matisse are among the artists he studied and admired. Other important artistic sources included African art, Chinese landscapes, and the work of his contemporaries in the United States and Mexico. Bearden was constantly processing new sources of information—art, books, and life—which in turn enriched his work. |
Romare Bearden, Profile/Part I, The Twenties: Pittsburgh
Memories, Farewell Eugene, 1978, Laura Grosch and Herb Jackson
Romare Bearden, Now the Dove and the Leopard Wrestle, 1946, Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 
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