In Martinique
Artist
Romare Bearden
(American, 1911-1988)
Date1971
MediumCollage and watercolor on card
DimensionsFrame Size: 15 5/8 × 18 3/4 in. (39.7 × 47.6 cm)
Image Size: 8 3/4 × 11 3/4 in. (22.2 × 29.8 cm)
ClassificationsCollage
Credit LineBequest of Michael Tolan, 2011
Object numberUAC5030
DescriptionRomare Bearden is a celebrated African American artist and writer. He was one of the most prolific and distinguished artists of the twentieth century and “an outspoken advocate for African American arts and artists.” Bearden was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1911 and passed away in New York City on March 12, 1988, at age 76. He began college at Lincoln University, transferred to Boston University, then transferred and graduated from New York University with a degree in education. He took many art courses at NYU, and he was a lead cartoonist and eventual art editor of the monthly journal The Medley. Bearden published many journal covers as a university student, along with writings on social and artistic matters. He also became a weekly editorial cartoonist for the Baltimore Afro-American from 1935-1937.He began studying art when he joined the Harlem Artists Guild. He had a vast range of scholarly and intellectual interests, “including music, performing arts, history, literature, and world arts.” Bearden drew from a variety of artistic influences, including Western artists like Duccio, Giotto, de Hooch, Cezanne, Picasso, and Matisse, along with African sculpture, masks, and textiles, Byzantine mosaics, Japanese prints, and Chinese landscape painting. He employed numerous media to compose his works, such as collages, watercolors, oils, photo montages, and prints. Among his diverse works, he his best known for his collages, “two of which appeared on the covers of Fortune and Time magazines in 1968.” His art is rich in “visual metaphors from his past in Mecklenberg County, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, and Harlem.” Additionally, he drew inspiration “from a variety of historical, literary, and musical sources.”
Bearden was a social worker by day and an artist by night from the mid-1930s through the 1960s. His skills as an artist were recognized at his first solo exhibition in Harlem in 1940, followed by his first solo show in Washington D.C. in 1944. Since then, his art has been displayed throughout the United States and Europe and is featured in several notable public collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and The Studio Museum in Harlem.
Bearden advocated for Black artists and other minorities through his leadership roles in several arts organizations. In 1964 he was appointed the first art director of the Harlem Cultural Council: “a prominent African American advocacy group.” To add, he was one of the founding members of the Black Academy of Arts and Letters in 1970, and he was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1972. Bearden also founded several art venues, like the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Cinque Gallery; the Cinque Gallery was founded to support young minority artists. Bearden was also involved in theater, designing costumes and sets for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, as well as programs, sets, and designs for Nanette Bearden’s Contemporary Dance Theater.
Bearden married Nanette Rohan in 1954, and they established their second home on the Caribbean Island of St. Martin in the early 1970s: Nanette’s ancestral home. Some of Bearden’s later works featured the Caribbean landscape, one of them being his 1971 collage and watercolor work In Martinique. Bearden and Rohan would have established or had been in the process of establishing their second home in St. Martin at the time this work was created; perhaps he took a trip to Martinique after he and his wife settled into their St. Martin home. In Martinique is an abstracted rendering of the Caribbean Island of Martinique. He employs watercolor to depict the bright blue waters of the island. There are yellow portions in the work that appear to be an underlayer of paper for the collage. The layers of collage create texture in the work: from the sharp edges of rocks and wood to the softness of the plants. Near the lower middle portion of the composition, Bearden utilizes black scraps of paper that resemble boulders and logs, framing the seashore. Tree trunks are situated throughout the work, with many of them angled towards each other to form triangles. Amidst all the layers of paper one can find the subtle contours of palm leaves. The angled trees and mismatch of shapes create a sense of disruption and unrest. Bearden places a boot in the lower right corner, perhaps in references to the French colonization of Martinique beginning in the 17th century. Despite this use of abstraction, this work may be indicative of the social and political issues in Martinique during the early 1970s: when the island was in the process of fighting for its autonomy. Bearden’s use of collage as a medium is reminiscent of Picasso’s collage works from the early twentieth century. The work is created on a card, which may suggest that Bearden could send it to his friends and family in America to inform them about the state of Martinique at the time. Moreover, In Martinique shows that Bearden’s passion for addressing social issues from his university years was steadfast throughout the rest of his life.
Written by Angela Athnasios
Sources: Richard J. Powell, Black Art: A Cultural History, Thames & Hudson Ltd., 1997.
beardenfoundation.org
britannica.com/martinique
martinicaonline.com
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