MoAD Current Exhibitions
From Process to Print:
Graphic Works by
Romare Bearden
May 6, 2011 – July 3, 2011
Museum of the African Diaspora
685 Mission Street (at Third)
San Francisco, California 94105
phone: 415.358.7200
fax: 415.358.7252The Family, 1975 Etching and Aquatint, Edition 25; Courtesy of Alex Rosenberg, New York, New York
From Process to Print: Graphic Works by Romare Bearden is a traveling exhibition that is part of a national centennial celebration of Bearden, an American artist of African American heritage who is widely acknowledged as one of the most talented and original visual artists of the twentieth century. The exhibition, organized by the Romare Bearden Foundation, includes 84 lithographs, etchings, collagraphs, collagraph plates, screenprints, drypoints, monotypes, and engravings produced over three decades by Bearden.
The exhibition offers a unique opportunity to examine Bearden’s print-making process and to understand how key themes and motifs like trains, family life, rituals, rural and urban scenes, jazz, and mythology extended his artistic imagination beyond collages, of which he is an acknowledged master, into the graphic medium.
Focusing on the later period of his career, “From Process to Print” explores Bearden’s graphic oeuvre from the 1960s though the early 1980s. Included are prints based on collages like the “Odysseus Series” and “Piano Lesson” that he reworked in several media through changes in technique, scale, and color. Also included are two important photoengraving series, "The Train" and "The Family", and the extraordinary limited edition “12 Trains.”
[PRESS ROOM] • Opening Reception Photos
Related Programs and Events
• Friday, May 6 - Opening Reception | Reception Invitation | Reception Photos
• Saturday, May 7 - LECTURE | Romare Bearden, American Modernist
• Saturday, May 21 - FAMILY DAY | The Art of Romare Bearden
• Saturday, June 4 - PERFORMANCE and LECTURE | Find Your Song: The Blues Arias of August Wilson
• Saturday, June 18 - FAMILY DAY | Screenprinting Your Family History
• Sunday, June 19 - FREE DAY | Celebrate Juneteenth and Father's Day featuring The Marcus Shelby Trio
• Friday, June 24 - FILM SCREENING and DISCUSSION | From the Quarters to Lincoln Heights
View full public programs calendar
Support for the exhibition, opening reception and accompanying programs was provided by The Ernest Bates Foundation, American Shared Hospital Services, Jewelle Taylor Gibbs, Ph.D. and James Lowell Gibbs, Jr., Ph.D., and the Yerba Buena Community Benefit District. Additional support for the opening reception is provided by eco.love Wines, J&V Catering, Ame Restaurant, and Floral Ornament. MoAD receives ongoing support from the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, foundations, corporations and individuals including its Board of Directors, patrons and members.
About Romare Bearden
Romare Bearden (1911-1988), an American artist of African-American heritage, was honored during his lifetime and posthumously with numerous prestigious awards, publications, and exhibitions. Along with representation in important public and private collections, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts and honored with a groundbreaking retrospective exhibition at the National Gallery of Art. A master collagist, Bearden is celebrated today as a preeminent, highly prolific artist of exceptional and multifaceted talents and interests. He was a jazz aficionado, an author of scholarly books, a song writer/lyricist, as well as an arts activist and humanist. Bearden incorporated a rich montage of influences from American, African, Asian, and European art and culture and took inspiration from memories and experiences of the rural South, the urban North, and the Caribbean. [biography]
Photo Credit: Romare Bearden, 1980 by Marvin E. Newman
Related Links/Resources
Romare Bearden Foundation
The Art of Romare Bearden (NPR)
