Stripper's Guide

Romare Howard Bearden son of Howard and Mrs. Bessye Bearden of 154 West 131st street, New York City, has been elected art editor of the Beanpot, humor magazine of Boston University where young Bearden is a student in the sophomore class. In his freshman year young Bearden was pitcher on the baseball team.

[Bearden] spent his first two years in college at New York University, graduating with a bachelor of science in education in 1935. He started drawing cartoons in college and became the art editor of the New York University student magazine Medley and the school newspaper's principal cartoonist. Bearden was part of a relatively new and small group of black cartoonists that was forging new territory in illustration. The work of E. Simms Campbell (who he met in Boston), Ollie Harrington, Miguel Covarrubias, Honore Daumier, Jean-Louis Forain, and Kathe Kollwitz would greatly influence him. His early cartoons, along with those he did for the magazine College Humor, established Bearden’s lifelong interest in social realism and social commentary through art. He also contributed cartoons to the nationally circulated Baltimore Afro-American, the urban League’s Opportunity magazine, and Collier’s. His early published comic strips included Dobby Hicks (which has been compared to the strip Henry), which was followed by Dusty Dixon, a more evolved strip. He felt neither strip was the ideal place for his social commentary and sought a better way to communicate his view of the black condition. His developing interest in identity, in his southern heritage, and in the issues of the people of the black diaspora, which became a dominant theme of his work, found their early expressions in his political cartoons of The Crisis. These political cartoons led him to pursue a career as a politically engaged artist.

…Romare flirted with songwriting and might even have been a major league pitcher, having been on Boston University’s varsity baseball team, before he transferred to NYU. He’d even hurled a couple of summers for the Boston Tigers, an all-Black team. Twenty of his songs were recorded, among them “Seabreeze,” that featured Billy Exkstine and Oscar Pettiford…. 

…[In the 1930s Bearden] enrolled at the Art Students League, having soon decided that he preferred life of an artist to teaching math. George Grosz was his instructor and introduced him to the work of Kathy Kollwitz and Honore Daumier—all recorders of social protest….

Washington—(ANP)—Another striking blow at discrimination against Negroes in war industries, the Army and the Navy, was delivered by an organ of big business this week when Fortune magazine attacked such racial restrictions in a 10 page article in its June issue.

Entitled “The Negros War,” the article, which strikes out boldly against discrimination, is graphically illustrated with drawings by Charles “Spinuky [sic]” Alston. A full page frontispiece showing unemployed Negro workers standing near a defense plant was drawn by Romare Bearden….

Miss Carrese Crosby, former publisher of books and magazines in Europe, is sponsoring an exclusive exhibition of the works of Sgt. Romare H. Beardcn, of the 372nd Headquarters Company, in the G Place Gallery, Washington, D. C. from Tuesday to February 15th. The artist-soldier left Saturday accompanied by bis father, R. Howard Bearden, to attend the preview on Sunday.

Harlem’s newest cultural center, the LETCHER Art Center located at 2368 Seventh Ave., has brought together some of the country’s leading artists. Aside from Ohio-born Evelyn LETCHER, whose husband, Henry M. directs the three art centers established in D.C. by this talented duo, the center has recruited the services of Charles S. CARTER, Marc K. HEINE and Vivian S. KEYES, instructors to commercial art, ceramics and arts and crafts, respectively. The board of consultants reads like a “Who’s Who” in the world of art, with Elton FOX, Jacob LAWRENCE, Grayson WALKER, Romare H. BEARDEN aad Charles “Spinky” ALSTON making up the brilliant panel.

…In the late Sixties, however, Bearden, [Norman] Lewis and [Ernest] Crichlow started the Cinque Gallery, which is still operating.

Cinque in Black history was a slave who ld a mutiny aboard a slaveship, piloted it to freedom, but then stood trial for the revolt.

…The initial goals for Cinque Gallery were: to provide a showcase for promising artists; share the collective experience of the founders with the newcomers; and to assist these discoveries in “getting their hands in.”

first one-man show was in 1940 at the studio of Ad Bates in Harlem. He was founder of the Spiral Artist Group, an organization formed primarily to deal with the problems of Black artists in America. He was also one of the founders of the CINQUE Gallery in New York.

He was appointed art director of the Harlem Cultural Council in 1964, a position he still holds. In 1969, he co-authored with Carl Holty in a book titled “The Painter’s Mind” and in 1970 was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to write a history of Afro-American art. Bearden has shown in many group exhibitions and had in­ numerable gallery and museum shows in he U.S. and Europe over the last thirty years.

The 1964 collages, called “Projections,” marked a major breakthrough in his art. Since then Bearden has been working exclusively in collages.

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

# posted by Alex Jay @ 8:00 AM