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Romare Bearden: Idea to Realization
Text by Sarah E. Lewis, Ralph Sessions.
One of the undisputed masters of American collage, Romare Bearden (1911-1988) once described collage-making as improvisation, likening it to the creative spontaneity of jazz and blues. Highlighting this approach, Idea to Realization features a rare group of works that blend paint, photographic images and abstracted cut-paper elements. Created as maquettes for murals, mosaics, book jackets and other projects, most of these works have never before been reproduced. The publication includes the striking maquette for “Pittsburgh Recollections,” a bold modernist panorama tracing the city's development that was realized in 1984 as the famed 60-foot-long mosaic of ceramic tiles in downtown Pittsburgh. Bearden frequently collaborated with fellow artists, writers, musicians and choreographers, creating artworks for books and designing book covers, posters, costumes and stage sets, and Idea to Realization also draws attention to the important role of collaboration in Bearden's practice.
"He intended that the athletic figure, half-black basketball player and half-white hockey player, express 'a kind of unity' among the races that existed more in the world of sports than elsewhere in American society."
Ralph Sessions, excerpted from On the Maquettes in Idea to Realization. Featured image, Romare Bearden's Sports: Hartford Mural, 1980, is reproduced from Idea to Realization.
STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely.
FROM THE BOOK
"Throughout the ages, artists have been truth tellers for our civilizations; they speak about the essence of their society in ways that others cannot or will not. Some such artists have incantatory vision. Romare Bearden was endowed with this gift. In his hands, slashes of textures and color become so active that they could show a complete world and its development across time; his collaged and painted images could inspire a vision of who we might become and remind us of who we had been all along. So well known is his salutary oeuvre that it is hard to image coming upon sterling pieces for the first time as we do in the exhibition Romare Bearden; Idea to Realization/ These infrequently seen maquettes for murals, mosaics and book projects give us a rare glimpse into the creative endeavor of this 'Ellington of twentieth-century painters' from conceptualization to completion."
FORMAT: Pbk, 9 x 11 in. / 30 pgs / 14 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $20.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $27.95 GBP £17.50 ISBN: 9780982631652 PUBLISHER: DC Moore Gallery AVAILABLE: 7/31/2011 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: WORLD
Published by DC Moore Gallery. Text by Sarah E. Lewis, Ralph Sessions.
One of the undisputed masters of American collage, Romare Bearden (1911-1988) once described collage-making as improvisation, likening it to the creative spontaneity of jazz and blues. Highlighting this approach, Idea to Realization features a rare group of works that blend paint, photographic images and abstracted cut-paper elements. Created as maquettes for murals, mosaics, book jackets and other projects, most of these works have never before been reproduced. The publication includes the striking maquette for “Pittsburgh Recollections,” a bold modernist panorama tracing the city's development that was realized in 1984 as the famed 60-foot-long mosaic of ceramic tiles in downtown Pittsburgh. Bearden frequently collaborated with fellow artists, writers, musicians and choreographers, creating artworks for books and designing book covers, posters, costumes and stage sets, and Idea to Realization also draws attention to the important role of collaboration in Bearden's practice.
