Bassett Gallery
August 23-November 16, 1997

Romare Bearden in Black-and-White: Photomontage Projections 1964 surveys the unique photocollages created by this seminal artist. Unseen as a group for over 30 years, these important works explore themes and techniques that came to form the basis of Bearden's well-known later work.

Photo: Frank Stewart

In 1963, Romare Bearden (1912-1988) was part of a group of fifteen African-American artists who formed the organization Spiral.  Inspired by the aims of the contemporary civil rights movement, the group sought to create a socially engaged aesthetic that reflected black culture and experience. For Spiral's first group exhibition, entitled Black and White, Bearden proposed a collaborative collage made from magazine clippings.

Although the group project never took place, Bearden, who had previously worked as a painter, adapted the technique to his own work. He began creating small collages and then photographically enlarging them, creating black-and-white images he called "photomontage projections."
Seeking to conceive archetypal images that reflected the continuity of his culture, Bearden chose subjects ranging from baptisms, burials, and the cotton fields of the South to jazz sessions, Harlem street life, and ritual figures such as the Conjur Woman. Rich in social meaning and compositional inventiveness, these photomontages represented a stylistic breakthrough that Bearden continued to refine until his death.

One of the most significant American artists of this century, Bearden has had solo exhibitions at such esteemed institutions as the Museum of Modern Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. His work is included in the collections of virtually every major museum in the United States.

This exhibition was organized and circulated by the Council for Creative Projects, Lee, Massachusetts, and New York, New York. Funding has been provided by the Madison Community Foundation; the Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission; The Art League of the Madison Art Center; the Exhibition Initiative Fund; the Madison Art Center's 1997-1998 Sustaining Benefactors; and a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin.

Mysteries, 1964, photomontage, 49 x 61 1/2 in.
Estate of Romare Bearden, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York and Munich
Photo: Morris Lane

The Street, 1964, photomontage, 31 x 41 in.
Estate of Romare Bearden, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York and Munich
Photo: Jerry Thompson

Train Whistle Blues No. 1, 1964, photomontage, 29 x 37 1/2 in.
Estate of Romare Bearden, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York and Munich

Jazz: (Chicago) Grand Terrace--1930s, 1964, photomontage, 35 x 47 in.
Estate of Romare Bearden, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York and Munich

Romare Bearden in his studio with a photograph of his great-grandparents
(who were also Duke Ellington's grandparents)
Photo: Frank Stewart
 

 Return to Madison Art Center homepage