Farewell in New Orleans
Maker
Romare Bearden
(American, 1911 - 1988)
Date1975
MediumCut paper, newsprint, and glossy magazine paper collage
DimensionsPanel: 14 7/8 × 19 in. (37.8 × 48.3 cm)
Framed: 16 7/8 × 20 15/16 × 1 1/2 in. (42.9 × 53.2 × 3.8 cm)
Framed: 16 7/8 × 20 15/16 × 1 1/2 in. (42.9 × 53.2 × 3.8 cm)
Credit LineGift of Elisabeth and William Landes in honor of the 30th Anniversary of the Smart Museum
Object number2004.4
Object TypeMixed Media
On View
Not on viewRomare Bearden was born in North Carolina and raised in New York City. He came of age in a lively, intellectually stimulating household that figured prominently in the cultural movement of the Harlem Renaissance, circa 1920s and 1930s in New York. Bearden studied art in Boston and New York. Then, after serving in World War II, he used the GI Bill to study in Europe, where he cultivated an interest in avant-garde art. Although Bearden received critical attention for his paintings in the 1940s and 1950s, his work embarked on a different direction in the 1960s as he explored the expressive and aesthetic possibilities of collage. A passionate community organizer, Bearden served as an active member of various organizations, including Spiral, the Harlem Cultural Council, the Cinque Gallery, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. His awards and honors include the prestigious National Medal of Arts, and election to both the American Academy of Design and the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
Romare Bearden engages with the medium of collage to explore the traditions, consciousness, and social issues of the communities in which he has lived. In this piece, Bearden visualizes the rich, energetic relationships among music, community, and life that coalesce in the funeral rite. Befitting a traditional New Orleans jazz funeral, a brass band accompanies the mourners to the burial site. Music plays a significant role in the lives of Bearden’s subjects—it serves to usher the dead to rest, as well as to console the mourners and restore them to their everyday lives. Bearden builds the collage surface with colored paper and images cut from newspapers and magazines—elements that imbue his work with a sense of modernity and connect his work to the lives and histories of his contemporaries recorded in journalistic photography. Although this collage incorporates images from the mass media, Bearden emphasizes the individuality and agency of his subjects through the thoughtful construction of each figure and their relationships to one another.
Resources: Smart Collecting: Acquisitions 1990–2004, Celebrating the Thirtieth Anniversary of the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, Kimerly Rorschach, ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004, p.84-85
The Romare Bearden Foundation, http://www.beardenfoundation.org.
Romare Bearden engages with the medium of collage to explore the traditions, consciousness, and social issues of the communities in which he has lived. In this piece, Bearden visualizes the rich, energetic relationships among music, community, and life that coalesce in the funeral rite. Befitting a traditional New Orleans jazz funeral, a brass band accompanies the mourners to the burial site. Music plays a significant role in the lives of Bearden’s subjects—it serves to usher the dead to rest, as well as to console the mourners and restore them to their everyday lives. Bearden builds the collage surface with colored paper and images cut from newspapers and magazines—elements that imbue his work with a sense of modernity and connect his work to the lives and histories of his contemporaries recorded in journalistic photography. Although this collage incorporates images from the mass media, Bearden emphasizes the individuality and agency of his subjects through the thoughtful construction of each figure and their relationships to one another.
Resources: Smart Collecting: Acquisitions 1990–2004, Celebrating the Thirtieth Anniversary of the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, Kimerly Rorschach, ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004, p.84-85
The Romare Bearden Foundation, http://www.beardenfoundation.org.
