Paper Trail: Romare Bearden Works on Paper

This exhibition features rarely seen watercolors and prints by Romare Bearden on loan from Charlotte-area collections. These works on paper explore several themes relative to African American cultural experiences as well as Bearden's personal experiences in North Carolina and in the Caribbean. Often Bearden's southern roots appeared in works themed with cabins, conjure women, blues musicians, and rural landscapes. His urban life in Harlem and Pittsburgh showed up in jazz clubs and musicians, family interiors, and street scenes reflecting community life. Eventually his visits to the Caribbean led to lush landscapes. Though Bearden worked as a modern artist aware of the contemporary canon and its major artists and developments, much of his work was rooted in the specifics of his personal experience as an African American. This exhibition is organized to explore the complex, cultural being that Romare Bearden was.