The Romare Bearden Reader

Acknowledgments  ix
"Pressing on Life Until It Gave Back Something in Kinship": An Introductory Essay / Robert G. O'Meally  1
Part I. Life and Times
Putting Something over Something Else / Calvin Tomkins  31
Interview with Romare Bearden / Henri Ghent  54
Part II. Writings
The Negro Artist and Modern Art / Romare Bearden  87
The Negro Artist's Dilemma / Romare Bearden  91
The Journal of Romare Bearden: 1947 to 1949 / Romare Bearden  99
Rectangular Structure in My Montage Paintings / Romare Bearden  121
The Twenties and the Black Renaissance / Romare Bearden and Harry Henderson  133
The 1930s: An Art Reminiscence / Romare Bearden  156
Humility / Romare Bearden  162
Encounters with African Art / Romare Bearden  164
Part III. Reflections on a Layered Legacy
Bearden: Black Life on Its Own Terms / August Wilson  175
Abrupt Stops and an Unexpected Liquidity: The Aesthetics of Romare Bearden / Toni Morrison  178
The Genius of Romare Bearden / Elizabeth Alexander  185
The Art of Romare Bearden / Ralph Ellison  196
Bearden / Ralph Ellison  204
Between the Shadow and the Act / John Edgar Wideman  209
Romare Bearden: African American Modernism at Mid-Century / Kobena Mercer  217
Bearden Plays Bearden / Albert Murray  236
The Political Bearden / Brent Hayes Edwards  256
Circe in Black: Homer, Toni Morrison, Romare Bearden / Farah Jasmine Griffin  270
Conjure and Collapse in the Art of Romare Bearden / Rachael Delue  281
Changing, Conjuring Reality / Richard Powell  296
Romare Bearden's Li'l Dan the Drummer Boy: Coloring a Story of the Civil War / Robert Burns Stepto  307
Impressions and Improvisations: A Look at the Prints of Romare Bearden / Mary Lee Corlett  315
Bearden's Caribbean Dimension / Sally Price and Richard Price  351
Sheer Mastery: Romare Bearden's Final Year / Myron Schwartzman  363
Romare Bearden, an Idelible Imprint / David C. Driskell  379
Selected References  389
Index  393