Cattle of the Sun God

1979

Romare Bearden

Artist, American, 1911 - 1988

Romare Bearden

Attributed to

Twenty animals, two people nearby, and a boat are created with stylized, angular, black silhouettes against an area of golden brown to represent land and vivid blue for sky and water in this nearly square screenprint. The shoreline angles from near the middle of the left edge of the print up and to the right. The animals lie or stand in the brown area, which takes up most of the picture. Some have horns, and they are different sizes. A tree with a brown trunk and emerald-green canopy is near the horizon, which comes three-quarters of the way up this composition, and three tufts of green plants grow along the bottom edge. To the left and near the water, each of the two people hold out a spear with one hand. They seem to face each other and jointly hold or touch an oblong object, perhaps a shield shown in profile. The person the right wears a white garment covering the chest to upper thighs. The boat is in the water to the left, and two black-colored forms there could be two more people wading near the shoreline. A thin strip of white separates the water from the same-colored sky above. A charcoal-gray cloud piles on the horizon to the left, and a buttercup-yellow sun rests like a bath bubble held in the hand to the right. The artist signed the lower margin beneath the printed image with “65/125” to the left and “Romare Bearden” to the right.
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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    color screenprint on wove Lana paper

  • Credit Line

    Purchased as the Gift of Richard A. Simms

  • Dimensions

    image: 46.04 × 55.88 cm (18 1/8 × 22 in.)
    sheet: 53.76 × 50.8 cm (21 3/16 × 20 in.)

  • Accession Number

    2013.142.4


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Bill Hodges, NY); gift to NGA, 2013

Associated Names

Bibliography

1992

  • Gelburd, Gail and Alex Rosenberg. A Graphic Odyssey: Romare Bearden as Printmaker. Exh. cat., University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992: 46.

Inscriptions

lower left in graphite: 65/125; lower right in graphite: Romare Bearden; lower right verso in graphite by unknown hand: Cattle of / Sun god / 800- / BEA-6

Markings

blindstamp: HMK (for printer Mohammad Omer Khalil, New York)

Watermarks

LANA

Wikidata ID

Q77006210


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