Romare Bearden

Romare Bearden (September 2, 1911 – March 12, 1988) was an African-American artist, author, and songwriter. He worked taking into consideration many types of media including cartoons, oils, and collages. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden grew in the works in New York City and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and graduated from New York University in 1935.

He began his artistic career creating scenes of the American South. Later, he worked to look the philanthropy he felt was lacking in the world after his experience in the US Army during World War II on the European front. He returned to Paris in 1950 and studied art archives and philosophy at the Sorbonne.

Bearden's early feat focused on unity and cooperation within the African-American community. After a become old during the 1950s similar to he painted more abstractly, this theme reemerged in his collage works of the 1960s. The New York Times described Bearden as "the nation's foremost collagist" in his 1988 obituary. Bearden became a founding supporter of the Harlem-based art group known as The Spiral, formed to discuss the liability of the African-American performer in the civil rights movement.

Bearden was the author or coauthor of several books. He moreover was a songwriter, known as co-writer of the jazz classic "Sea Breeze", which was recorded by Billy Eckstine, a former tall school classmate at Peabody High School, and Dizzy Gillespie. He had long supported young, emerging artists, and he and his wife time-honored the Bearden Foundation to continue this work, as with ease as to sustain young scholars. In 1987, Bearden was awarded the National Medal of Arts.