Press Releases
Press Releases
The Mint Museum Celebrates Romare Bearden with Major Retrospective
Exhibition brings together 100 works from every stage of artist’s career
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (27 April 2011) – This fall, The Mint Museum presents a major
retrospective of the work of Romare Bearden (1911-1988), widely regarded as one of
America’s most pre-eminent African American artists and foremost collagists, as well as a
noted writer and musician. The exhibition Romare Bearden: Southern Recollections surveys 50
years of the artist’s work, from his early abstract paintings to the influential collages that
dominated his later body of work. Opening on the centennial of Bearden’s birth, the exhibition
will be on view at the Mint Museum Uptown (at Levine Center for the Arts, 500 South Tryon
Street) from 2 September 2011 – 8 January 2012.
“Romare Bearden broke new ground with his innovative collages and left a powerful
legacy to generations of American artists,” said Curator of Contemporary Art and exhibition
curator Carla Hanzal. “Given the long association between Bearden and the city of Charlotte,
the Mint has a special interest in bringing this important career overview to the public.”
Romare Bearden: Southern Recollections will include approximately 100 works of art
drawn from The Mint Museum’s extensive holdings, as well as national public and private
collections. This exhibition examines how the South served as a source of inspiration
throughout his career, a theme which has not been explored previously. Among the large
thematic groupings will be selections from the Prevalence of Ritual series, which includes
many works referring to Bearden’s childhood home in North Carolina.
Born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Bearden lived there until the age of four.
Although his family settled in New York, the artist’s brief childhood in the South and return
visits to Charlotte made a noteworthy impact on his art. During these visits, Bearden absorbed
stories and observations about the rituals of daily Southern life—the relentless toil of crop
cultivation, women tending gardens and mixing herbal remedies, fish fries and other
community gatherings, and religious activities. These experiences, which stood in stark contrast
to the urban rhythm of his parents’ New York City household, left a lasting impression on him.
The exhibition’s loosely chronological structure traces critical themes in Bearden’s
work such as music, religion, social change, and family, particularly informed by an African-
American experience. The earliest group of works, from the 1940s, focuses on his memories of
the rural South, painted in tempera on brown paper and characterized by strong colors, flattened
perspective, and stylized, highly formal compositions. Works such as The Visitation (1941) and
Folk Musicians (1942) depict scenes of agrarian life yet also portray universal emotional bonds.
As Bearden developed his iconic collage technique in the mid-1960s, he made use of a
wide ranges of art practices, both Western and non-Western. His use of collage, with its
distortions, reversals, and Surrealistic blending of styles, enabled Bearden to convey the dreamlike
quality of memory, and was, therefore, a perfect vehicle for recording of his memories of
the South. After helping to found an artist’s group in support of civil rights in 1963, Bearden’s
work became more overtly socially conscious. One of his most famous series, Prevalence of
Ritual, concentrated mostly on southern African American life. Works like Baptism (1964)
examined the changing nature of African Americans’ rights. Illustrating the movement of water
being poured onto the subject being baptized, Bearden conveyed the temporal flux of society
during the civil rights movement. In Carolina Reunion (1975), the subject matter is emblematic
of the longing for a better life and the comforting familiarity of home embodied in the northern
migration of African Americans from the South during the early part of the 20th century.
Bearden returned to Mecklenburg County in the 1970s just as his career was beginning
to gain momentum. This Southern homecoming proved bittersweet. Charlotte was undergoing
urban renewal, and already traces of Bearden’s past had been erased. This nostalgic experience
imbued Bearden with a greater sense of urgency to both celebrate and eulogize a lost way of
life, a theme that would inform his artwork for the remainder of his days.
During the 1970s, Bearden developed a complex iconography that spoke to these new
developments. Drawn to “journeying things”—trains and birds—his inclusion of these
recurring motifs implied a movement from one way of life to another. He increasingly used
richer colors and more decorative patterns to mediate ideas about African American community
and culture, as in Of the Blues: Carolina Shout (1974), Back Porch Serenade (1977), and
Sunset Limited (Mecklenburg County) (1978).
A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition with contributions by Mary
Lee Corlett, Jae Emerling, Glenda Gilmore, and Leslie King-Hammond. The exhibition will
tour nationally following its debut at the Mint.
Romare Bearden: Southern Recollections is made possible with generous support from
Duke Energy and Wells Fargo. Additional funding is provided by an award from the National
Endowment for the Arts.
Exhibition Public Programs:
First Friday
2 September | 6:00-11:00 p.m. | Mint Museum Uptown
Enjoy the exhibition opening, gallery tours, live entertainment, hands-on collage activities,
cash bar, and Bearden birthday celebrations
Free for Mint members, $10 non-members.
Romare Bearden’s Jazz Compositions in Performance (Charlotte Premiere)
4 September | 3:00 p.m. | Mint Museum Uptown
Bearden wrote many jazz compositions but few are performed today. This is a rare opportunity
to hear a selection of his musical work, and to learn about his relationships with many leading musicians.
Free for Mint members, or after admission.
Lecture: Color Struck - Evidence and Essence (Decoding and Living the Legacy of Romare Bearden)
10 September | 11:00 a.m. | Mint Museum Uptown
Discussion with Hasaan Kirkland, associate professor of fine art, Johnson C. Smith University.
Free.
Point/Counterpoint Dialogue: Bearden’s Charlotte Recollections
11 September | 3:00 p.m. | Mint Museum Uptown
Discussion with Dr. Glenda Gilmore, historian, Yale University, and Dr. Richard Powell, art
historian, Duke University.
Free for Mint members, or after admission.
After-School Class: Maudell’s Secret Garden (Grades 1-3)
Five-part series: 15, 22, 29 September & 6, 13 October | 4:00-5:30 p.m. | Mint Museum Randolph
Explore the works of Charlotte native Romare Bearden and create a series of watercolor and
collage paintings based on gardens found in Mecklenburg County.
Tuition: $150 member, $180 non-member.
Curator’s Tours
21 September, 16 October, 9 November | 2:00 p.m. | Mint Museum Uptown
Curator of Contemporary Art Carla Hanzal will lead exhibition tours.
Free for Mint members, or after admission
Lecture Series
Three-part series: 4, 25 October and 1 November | 7:00-8:30 p.m. | Mint Museum Uptown
Discussion with Davidson College faculty: Shaw Smith (art history), Nancy Fairley (social anthropology), Bill Lawing (music). Free.
Adult Painting and Drawing Class: Toward Paw Creek
Five-part series: 4, 11, 25 October & 1, 8 November | 6:30-8:30 p.m. | Mint Museum Uptown
Explore works by Romare Bearden and create your own portfolio of paintings that explore
themes rooted in Southern culture and topography. Watercolor, mixed media, monotype and
collage techniques. Models and materials provided. Tuition: $150 member, $180 non-member.
Lecture: Romare Bearden
9 October | 3:00 p.m. | Mint Museum Uptown
Speaker TBA. Free to Mint members, or after admission.
College Night
11 October | 6:00-9:00 p.m. | Mint Museum Uptown
Students will enjoy live music, film, and an exhibition walk-through.
Free, $5 film admission for non-members.
Conversation on the Art of Romare Bearden
14 October | 7:00 p.m. | Mint Museum Uptown
Discussion with Ruth Fine, curator of special projects in modern art, National Gallery of Art,
and Herb Jackson, painter and professor emeritus, Davidson College. Reception following.
Free.
Davidson College Day
15 October | 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. | Mint Museum Uptown
Davidson College students receive free admission with proof of college ID.
Sunday Fun Day
16 October | 1:00-5:00 p.m. | Mint Museum Uptown
Family drop-in activities celebrating the art of Romare Bearden.
Free for Mint members, or after admission.
Lecture
18 October | 7:00 p.m. | Mint Museum Uptown
Discussion with Kyle Coleman, Education Outreach Assistant, Columbia Museum of Art,
about the parallels between Africobra and the Spiral groups.
Free.
Southern Writers/Southern Recollections
Four-part series: 23, 30 October & 6, 13 November | 3:00 p.m. | Mint Museum Uptown
A four-part series of readings of prose and poetry about the Southern sense of place by
renowned North and South Carolina writers.
Tickets: $10 member, $15 non- member.
Adult Master Class: Mosaic Workshop (The Long Trains)
19 November | 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. | Mint Museum Uptown
Craft your own mosaic masterpiece at this one day workshop with artist Tom Thoune.
Tuition: $120 member, $150 non-member.
First Friday
7 January 2012 | 6:00-8:00 p.m. | Mint Museum Uptown
Celebrate the exhibition’s closing weekend with gallery tours,
live entertainment, hands-on art activities, and a cash bar.
Free for Mint members, $10 non-members.
Community Homecoming
7 and 8 January 2012 | Mint Museum Uptown
Enjoy performances, tours, music, a poetry slam, and extended
museum hours with galleries open until 9:00 p.m. on Saturday.
Free.
exhibitions, and innovative educational programs. Established in 1936 as the first art museum in North Carolina, the Mint
Museum Randolph is housed in what was the first branch of the United States Mint and exhibits collections of art of the ancient
Americas, ceramics, and historic costume, among others. The Mint Museum Uptown houses the internationally-renowned Mint
Museum of Craft + Design, as well as American and contemporary art and select works from the European art collection. The
Mint Museum is funded, in part, with operating support from the Arts & Science Council of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Inc.; the
North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources; the City of Charlotte; and its members.