Romare Bearden (1911-1988) was an American artist and writer who was known for his paintings and collages, depicting colorful vignettes of Black life. He was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and grew up in New York City and Pittsburgh. For much of his childhood, his parents’ home was a meeting place for significant figures of the Harlem Renaissance such as W.E.B. DuBois and Langston Hughes. He attended New York University, graduating in 1935 with a degree in science and education, and became a member of the Harlem Artists Guild. During this period, he drew inspiration from Mexican muralists, and created work that depicted scenes of the African-Americans in unified communities. In 1942, Bearden was drafted into the U.S. Army where he served until 1945. Shortly after his service, he joined the well known avant-garde purveyor of art Samuel Kootz Gallery in New York, with the composition of his work shifting from figurative to abstraction. In 1950, he traveled to Paris on the G.I. Bill, studying philosophy at Sorbonne University and visiting museums throughout France and Italy. In the early 1960s, Bearden began working with photo-montage and collage while simultaneously turning towards more socially-conscious subject matter emboldened by the civil rights movement. During this time period Bearden founded the artist group Spiral, with artists such as Hale Woodruff, Charles Alston, and Norman Lewis, which promoted the work of Black artists and platformed work created in response to the ongoing civil rights movement. Bearden continued to create work, engage with his community, and fight for civil rights in and out of the art world until his death in 1988.
Romare Bearden has been the focus of several museum retrospectives including those organized by the Museum of Modern Art (1971), Mint Museum of Art (1980), Detroit Institute of the Arts (1986), Studio Museum in Harlem (1991), and National Gallery of Art (2003). His work is collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, National Gallery of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. In 1984, he received the Mayor's Award of Honor for Art and Culture in New York City, and in 1987, he was awarded the President's National Medal of the Arts. In his obituary The New York Times described him as "one of America's pre-eminent artists" and "the nation's foremost collagist."