NGA: The Art of Romare Bearden - Profile/Part I, The Twenties: Farewell Eugene, 1978

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[image] Profile/Part I, The Twenties: Farewell Eugene, 1978

Romare Bearden, Profile/Part I, The Twenties: Pittsburgh Memories, Farewell Eugene, 1978
collage of various papers with paint, ink, graphite, and bleached areas on fiberboard
Laura Grosch and Herb Jackson
© Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, N.Y.

Bearden's record of the funeral of Eugene Bailey is one of twenty-eight collages in a series recalling his childhood visits to Mecklenburg County and Pittsburgh. Eugene was a sickly lad who lived in the Pittsburgh home of Bearden's grandparents for a brief period shortly before his death in the mid-1920s. Bearden later credited Eugene's drawings of Pittsburgh life as the inspiration for his own youthful interest in art.