Romare Bearden: a Master of Narrative Structure

“Patchwork Quilt” - Romare Bearden - 1970. Cut-and-pasted cloth and paper with synthetic polymer paint on composition board, 35 3/4 x 47 7/8" (90.9 x 121.6 cm). Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund - Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) New YorkRomare Bearden was an American painter, whose collages of photographs and painted paper on canvas depict aspects of American black culture in a style derived from Cubism. He is considered one of the most important African American artists of the 20th century.

“Romare Howard Bearden was born on September 2, 1911, to (Richard) Howard and Bessye Bearden in Charlotte, North Carolina, and died in New York City on March 12, 1988, at the age of 76. His life and art are marked by exceptional talent, encompassing a broad range of intellectual and scholarly interests, including music, performing arts, history, literature and world art. Bearden was also a celebrated humanist, as demonstrated by his lifelong support of young, emerging artists.”

The gallery text label from MoMa best describes the work featured here--and much of Bearden’s other works.

“‘I try to show," Bearden said, "that when some things are taken out of the usual context and put in the new, they are given an entirely new character.’ A strategy of fragmentation and recombination informs Bearden's approach to art-making. The reclining figure at the center of the work resembles those of Egyptian tomb reliefs and its flattened pictorial space recalls Cubist painting. The background is made from collaged fabric that the artist has assembled into a patchwork quilt, invoking a distinctive African American domestic tradition.”

Henry Ossowa Tanner - The Most Distinguished African-American Artist of the Nineteenth Century

Henry Ossawa Tanner - The Annunciation - 1898 - Oil on canvas 57" x 71½" - Philadelphia Museum of Art (click photo for larger image)Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Banjo Lesson, 1893. Oil on canvas, 49" × 35½". Hampton University Museum (click photo for larger image)Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937, Paris, France), was the first African American painter to gain international acclaim--although that fame didn’t happen for the artist until he moved to Paris. Tanner was a realist painter of landscapes and biblical themes. While his early works, such as "The Banjo Lesson" were concerned with everyday life as an African American, Tanner's later paintings focused mainly on the religious subjects for which he is now best known.

Horace Pippin (1888-1946)

Horace Pippin, Christmas Morning Breakfast, 1945Horace Pippin in 1940Horace Pippin was an American naive painter, known for his depictions of African American life and the horrors of war. Pippin’s childhood was spent in Goshen, New York, a town that sometimes appears in his paintings. Pippin was wounded in WWI, and was discharged with a partially paralyzed right arm. He settled in Pennsylvania--and was “discovered” by the art world in 1937. Pippin’s later works are precise and boldly colored. He’s an excellent example of genre painting at its best--which refers to paintings that depict everyday people doing everyday things. Read more about Horace Pippin at the NGA Classroom for Student and Teachers.