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The thrill of ‘Something Else’
Cincinnati Art Museum exhibition celebrates Romare Bearden’s vibrant collages
By Cynthia Kukla
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Cincinnatians are in for a visual treat this spring, thanks to the Cincinnati Art Museum’s exhibit “‘Something Over Something Else’: Romare Bearden’s Profile Series.”
The exhibit brings together more than 30 collage paintings from Romare Bearden’s landmark series for the first time since its debut in New York nearly 40 years ago.
Many may not be familiar with this trailblazing African American artist who was born in North Carolina and spent his artistic career in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance, alongside such cultural luminaries as Duke Ellington and Josephine Baker.
What makes Romare (Roma-REE) Bearden (1911-1988) exceptional and exciting is the way he used collage to document what was happening in the neighborhood and on the streets of Harlem. Famous European artists such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse experimented with collage (newspaper fragments, old books, prints, colored papers and wallpaper samples assembled together). But Bearden took this experimental method to a new level.
Romare Bearden (1911- 1988), United States, “Profile/Part I, The Twenties: Mecklenberg County, Maudell Sleet’s Magic Garden,” 1978, collage on board
Collection of Pearson C. Cummin III and Linda Forrest Cummin. ©Romare Bearden Foundation/VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
He wasn’t content to make common still lifes, a classical European tradition. Rather, he focused on documenting what it was like growing up in rural North Carolina, so he made collage paintings of the farmworkers, farms and woods he fondly remembered. When he moved to Harlem in New York City, he was inspired by the jazz nightlife, skyscrapers and lively scenes happening in the neighborhood all around him. Forget stuffy still lifes, this is Harlem!
Anyone who loves color and loves history will enjoy this authentic vision of early 20th century life in Harlem. “To see this stunning historic series brought together is an opportunity not to be missed,” says Julie Aronson, Cincinnati Art Museum’s curator of American paintings, sculpture and drawings.
“Bearden’s work defies easy categorization – he moved gracefully between abstraction and figuration with exceptional creativity and drew upon so many different traditions. Walking through this exhibition, with its combination of poetic images and words, is like having the artist whispering in your ear. It is an extraordinarily moving experience.”
New fame in the 1970s
The works in “Something Over Something Else” appear in chronological order starting in the 1920s. Bearden assembled this series in the late 1970s after the publication of a feature-length biography in the New Yorker by art critic Calvin Tomkins brought new fame. After this success elevated Bearden’s status, he decided to look back on his life with a new series about his artistic journey.
Each artwork is accompanied by a short text by Bearden, in collaboration with his friend, writer Albert Murray. So we are treated not only to Bearden’s lush, color-drenched collage paintings, but also to the poetic and poignant narratives Bearden wrote, just as this series was envisioned and presented previously in New York.
Bearden leads viewers through his autobiography as he wished to share it, on his own terms. He was born in 1911, and like countless African Americans he experienced the kind of prejudice many professional people of color suffered.
We cannot imagine how frustrating it would be for someone of Bearden’s talent to have been overlooked for so many years. Bearden had worked for the New York Department of Welfare to support his family. He made his lush, timely collages and paintings on evenings and weekends, as so many artists did and still do.
Also, he grew up during the Works Progress Administration era, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent professional artists out to paint murals in post offices and such after the Great Depression. Bearden came to know about these artists and the importance of their social-realism artwork.
Since so many African-American and women artists were neglected for decades, it was a triumph that someone with the status of a Calvin Tomkins would feature Bearden in the New Yorker in the 1960s, and from that do a comprehensive biography.
Romare Bearden (1911-1988), United States, “Profile/Part I, The Twenties: Mecklenberg County, Railroad Shack Sporting House,” 1978, collage on board, Private collection
©Romare Bearden Foundation/VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
The High Museum of Art in Atlanta, which inaugurated this exhibit, has been a leading repository of Bearden’s art. Cincinnati is its second and final stop.
According to the CAM, the exhibition title, “Something Over Something Else,” was a phrase used by Bearden to describe his creative process.
“You put something down. Then you put something else with it, and then you see how that works, and maybe you try something else and so on, and the picture grows in that way,” Bearden said. This description of the nature of his work with collage, painting and mixed media echoes the improvisational nature of jazz.
Something more...
The Cincinnati Art Museum will offer free admission to “‘Something Over Something Else’: Romare Bearden’s Profile Series” from Friday, February 28-Sunday, March 1. This free access is made possible by the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky African American Chamber and Radio One Cincinnati. Starting March 3, tickets are $12 adults, $6 senior/children/ students. The exhibition is also free Thursday nights, 5-8 p.m., and during Art After Dark monthly events. Something more …
Additional public programming:
• Thursday, Feb. 27, 7 p.m. Lecture: exhibition curators Stephanie Heydt of the High Museum of Art and Robert G. O’Meally of Columbia University
• Friday, Feb. 28, 5-9 p.m. Bearden-themed Art After Dark: “Harlem Nights”
• April 16, 7 p.m. staged reading of August Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” in collaboration with Playhouse in the Park
The exhibit runs Feb. 28-May 24. Sponsors are LPK and Eric and Jan-Michele Kearney.
www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org
