"The street" by Romare Howard Bearden

 

   At this week post, we chose to write about the "collage" called "The Street" created by Romare Howard Bearden.

   Romare Howard Bearden (September 2, 1921- March 12 1988) was a social worker with the New York City Department of Social Services from the mid-1930s through 1960s working on his art at night and on weekends. Bearden art was inspired by his lifetime throughout the United States and Europe.

   In this "collage" he used newspaper and magazine photographs that he enlarged from their original color into huge black-and-white photographs in order to provide the artist's desired effect of urgency.His subjects included life in Harlem, memories of the rural South, and jazz musicians.

   The early 1960s brought a period of transition for Bearden. In 1963 a group of African American artists began meeting in his Harlem studio. Calling themselves the Spiral Group, they sought to define their roles as black artists within the context of the growing civil rights movement.
   His "collage", exhibited in 1964, caused a wave of controversy and excitement but the shock provoqued by this "collage" in first hand turned into solid success.

   The social turbulence and civil rights movement of the 1960s seemed to have served as a catalyst for beardens art, enabling him to find his truest subjects and the means to render them.