As we continue to honor #BlackHistoryMonth, we are highlighting celebrated artist and author #RomareBearden (1911-1988), renowned for his richly textured collages, paintings and photomontages portraying Harlem street scenes and rural North Carolina. Born in 1911 in Charlotte, NC, Bearden moved with his family to #Harlem in 1914. His parents’ household became a social and intellectual hub for luminaries of the #HarlemRenaissance. Among his many friends were distinguished artists, intellectuals and musicians such as Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Alvin Ailey and Jacob Lawrence. Bearden was a celebrated humanist, as demonstrated by his lifelong support of young, emerging artists. A founding member of the Harlem Cultural Council and Black Academy of Arts, Bearden was also a social worker with the New York City Department of Social Services, working on his art at night and on weekends. He was a longtime friend of #RobertBlackburn and one of the original trustees for the non-profit Printmaking Workshop (@efa.rbpmw). The two first met around 1936 in Harlem, when both attended meetings at “306” (an informal artists' group) and produced work at the Harlem Community Art Center.
In 1982, Romare Bearden created a collage of the #NewYorkCity skyline illuminated by a full moon (pictured image #2), which later served as his #MTAArts proposal that would be transformed into a jewel-like faceted glass triptych installed over the stairway landing at the Westchester Square-East Tremont Av (6) station. “Untitled” (City of Light) (1993 – proposed by artist in 1982) weaves together the spirit found in his many interests such as music, performing arts, history, literature and world art, connected by the thread of an elevated train passing through an urban landscape. Romare Bearden is recognized as one of the most original visual artists of the twentieth century.
