Romare Bearden was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. His family moved to Harlem, New York when he was very young. Bearden graduated from New York University in 1935 with a BS in Mathematics. Although he later studied art history and philosophy in Paris, Bearden never received a degree in Fine Art. He was active in Harlem’s art world as a member of the Harlem Artists Guild, and a founding member of the Spiral Group, a collective of African-American artists.
Bearden studied life drawing and painting at the Art Students League with German painter and political cartoonist George Grosz. Coupled with his background in mathematics, Bearden’s interest in the socio-political condition of African Americans made bold statements of his now famous collages. Made out of paper fragments, the faces, places and objects in his pictures are constructed with studied precision and insight into human nature.
Bearden had family ties that took him to St. Martin where the island’s atmosphere influenced many of his works. Recollection Pond, a hand-woven tapestry based on his 1970 photo collage Memories, is a richly colored wool weaving dominated by a bright tropical landscape. It boasts a variety of foliage and exotic birds bathed in sunshine.2 The female nude in the foreground is a natural part of the environment as she wades with fish as her companions in a shallow pool.
Bearden was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a recipient of the President’s National Medal of Arts. His work appears in numerous private and public collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Studio Museum in Harlem.
Recollection Pond was created in collaboration with Gloria Ross Tapestries, Inc., and was one of dozens of Ross’ collaborations with artists. York College’s tapestry is the fourth of an edition of seven (plus one artist’s proof) woven by Gloria F. Ross. Mount Holyoke College Art Museum (#2) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (#7) are among the owners the tapestries.2 The Recollection Pond tapestry on display at the World Trade Center (#3) was destroyed on September 11, 2001.3
Original Description by Stacey Thomas, class of 2003