Michael Lobel on Romare Bearden in the 1930s - Artforum International
SO AS NOT TO BURY THE LEDE, as the old journalistic saying goes, I’ll make things perfectly clear right from the outset: It’s very likely that this 1936 black-and-white photo of a protest in Brooklyn captures two hitherto unknown paintings by Romare Bearden, one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated African American artists. If that’s the case, these would be among the earliest, if not the earliest, painted works by Bearden on record. And, in their depiction of lynchings, they would help illuminate an important yet little discussed period in the artist’s career, when he created ...
Source: artforum.com
