Tomorrow I May Be Far Away, 1967 Romare Bearden “Tomorrow I May Be Far Away”, 1967 Leading African American artist of the mid-20th century -a successful painter, but well known as a collage artist, he made collage a medium for celebrating his African-American heritage and culture. He cut up photos/magazines, newspapers pasting and painting the pieces and shapes into powerful portraits of contemporary black life. In Tomorrow I May Be Far Away, Bearden reflects on his childhood memories of Mecklenburg County. There is a focus or elevation of the everyday that becomes a frequent motif in both his North Carolina and Harlem imagery Tomorrow I May Be Far Away, 1967

Bibliography Information Born: Sept. 2, 1911 in Charlotte, NC Family moved around to Pittsburgh, and Harlem More than an artist… 1954, marries Nanette Rohan, whom he spends the rest of his life -born in the south, both parents were college educated…but the Jim Crow laws of the south made them move to NYC -spent summers visiting grandparents in NC and Pitt….very influential in his artwork -in college, he started out as a math major at Lincoln U in Pennsylvania, transferred to Boston U…pitched for the bball team and began to publish illustrations and cartoons… -always downplayed his art b/c his mom disapproved of his painting as a career…worried that her son had his head in the clouds -gets a degree in edu…but paints almost full time -had a degree in edu…but was a painter -worked as a social worker for about 30 years while he painted on nights and weekends -writer -served in WWII -spokesman on artistic and social issues of the day -later in life, he and Nanette move to the island of St. Maarten in the Caribbean…another influence of his work

Inspiration… -Matisse, Picasso, African art mosaics, Japanese prints, Chinese landscape paintings -biggest inspiration: searched for his own voice…this was consistent in his work, expressing his ethnic roots in the South, Harlem, and West Indies

Les Damoiselles, Picasso

“Conjur Woman” Created in 1964 Conveys his interest in Black Caribean ritual Possesses a cubistic flavor similar to Picasso’s Based on African Masks

Gateway Center Mural, Pittsburg

Pittsburg Memories, Goodbye Eugene CMA: “Wrapping it up in LaFayette”

“The Block” Tribute to Harlem Each of the six panels represents life in Harlem, depicting neighborhood places such as the Evangelical Church, barbershop, and the corner grocery store.

Harlem Tenament Houses, 1943 The Block II

Collage Paintings… “Pittsburgh Memory” and “The Family” He once said…”i think the artist has to be something like a whale, swimming with his mouth open, absorbing everything until he has what he really needs”

“Watching the Good Trains Go By” -in honor of his exhibit at the Nat’l Gallery in DC in 2004, poet Kevin Young was asked to write poems reflecting 10 of Bearden’s pieces Watching the Good Trains Go By Only the stones know my name. The back of our family's King James forgot my birthday but still keeps a blank space for my death date. Sleep a strong wind that once let me drift— now, airless nights strand me in my battered boat. Fiddle without a bow. Pawnshop guitar. My mouth a harp, heart a harmonica in coat pockets so thin the wind is my accompanist. Sleep, I sing. Forget weeping. Watching the good trains go by—Washington & Dominion, Santa Fe — I think of jumping a boxcar wherever stays cooler than this here dirt red as a wound, or the bottom of the pot boiling the cure-red as a child's backside whupped till he cries & then's switched silent again. A torn tom-tom. Banjo without strings. Keep me, I sing. Forgive leaving. Only the stones call me home.