The Art of Romare Bearden

A Resource for Teachers

Bearden at a Glance

Meet Romare Bearden.
He was very tall.
His friends called him Romie.

He went to college.
He worked as a social worker.
Then he became a famous artist.
He was famous from the 1960s to 1988.

Bearden read all the time.
He read poems and books.
He knew many writers.
Some writers were his friends.

Bearden loved his cats.
He had four cats.
Their names were Gypo, Tuttle, Rusty, and Mikie.

Bearden's art shows black life.
It also shows things everyone feels.
This makes his art special.

Bearden did not just read.
He wrote too.
He wrote about art.
He wrote three big books about art.

Music was important to Bearden.
He grew up hearing blues and jazz.
Blues and jazz are kinds of music.
His art studio was above a music theater.
It was called the Apollo Theatre.

Bearden's special art style was collage.
Collage means gluing small pieces together.
He used pieces from magazines.
He used painted paper, foil, and posters.
These were like his paints.

Places Bearden Painted

He painted North Carolina.
That is where he was born.

He painted Pittsburgh.
He spent summers there.
He drew his first pictures there.

He painted Harlem.
That is a part of New York City.
He moved there as a little boy.

He painted St. Martin.
That is an island in the Caribbean.
He lived and worked there too.

Subjects Bearden Painted

He painted African-American life.
He painted stories from religion and history.
He painted stories from books and myths.
He painted blues singers and jazz players.

Other Things Bearden Made

He made pictures for books.
He made art for music albums.
He made stage sets and costumes.
He made big wall paintings called murals.

Bearden wanted to help black artists.
He wanted things to be fair for them.
He worked hard to help them get chances.

Bearden's Art Techniques

He used watercolor paint.
He used gouache paint.
He made collages.
He made prints.
He made monotypes.
A monotype is a print made only once.
He used oil paint.
He even made one sculpture!

Look for These in His Art

Trains
Spirit figures
Small houses
Row houses and porches
Big hands
Birds
Musicians
Windows
Hills
African sculptures
Smokestacks
Sun and moon
Cats
Roosters

Biography

Romare Bearden was born in Charlotte, North Carolina.
He was born on September 2, 1911.
His family was middle-class and African-American.
His parents went to college.
They wanted Romare to do well in life.

When Romare was little, his family moved north.
Many black families moved north back then.
This was called the Great Migration.
In the South, unfair laws called Jim Crow laws hurt black people.
These laws kept them from voting and having equal chances.

Bearden's family moved to Harlem in New York City.
Romare lived in New York for the rest of his life.

In the 1920s, Harlem was full of art and ideas.
It was a center for African-American culture.
Romare's mother worked for a newspaper.
She became well-known in Harlem.

Famous artists and writers visited their home.
Duke Ellington visited.
Langston Hughes visited too.
Meeting them helped Romare love jazz and books.

When Bearden was a boy, he often left Harlem.
He stayed with family in North Carolina.