Romare Beardenand

The Harlem Renaissance

Dr. Carol Walker Jordan

The Man at Home

History of the Harlem Renaissance

• An Arts Movement of the 1920s and 30s• “The New Negro Movement”..A Locke 1925• Embracing Music, Film, Dance, Theatre and Cabaret• Harlem nightlife offered dance halls and jazz bands that

attracted Negro and White enthusiasts• Literature flourished in Harlem and in Paris from 1919-

1924• Possibly the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great

Depression slowed or diffused the Renaissance yet its birth and impact were felt for many years.

Why Harlem and Who Came

• Early 1900s Harlem wealthy district developed for middle class white people

• Beautiful homes, broad streets, Polo grounds and the Harlem Opera House

• Immigration of Europeans to the area saw middle class whites abandoning area

• Immigrants bought, rented and sold properties, particularly African Americans

• Likewise, the Great Migration brought African Americans to Chicago and Philadelphia

• The African Americans who came to Harlem brought interests and talents in writing, music and theatre productions.

Who Came to Harlem

• 1917 Play production: “Three Plays for a Negro Theatre”

• Issues such as racism, race riots, lynchings expressed through the arts

• Jazz bands: a new means of expression using brass instruments and piano

• Jelly Roll Morton• Fats Waller• Duke Ellington • 1920s brought voices to

the arts rarely heard before

• Not only to Harlem but to Chicago and other major cities of the United States

What Did the Harlem Migration Accomplish in Later Years?

• Encourage vast migration of African Americans to northern cities

• African Americans sought education and employment opportunities unavailable to them for the first time

• African Americans brought contribution to the arts

• Racial divide seemed to lessen

• Whites admired and embraced the flowering of arts from African Americans

• Doors to acceptance and collaboration were opened

Later Years

• Harlem Renaissance successful in building bridges toward The Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s

• Writers could publish their writings in mainstream novels, magazines and newspapers

• Zora Neale Hurston said: “Sometimes I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can anyone deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.”

Romare Bearden: Descendant of the Harem Renaissance

• Born: 1911 Charlotte NC into a comfortable life for the times

• Parents Relocated to NYC for a better life with greater opportunities

• Cultural and educational stimulation existed in Harlem

• Enriched Romare’s life: college graduation and into the Art Students League in 1930

Romare’s Thirst

• Social Worker with gypsy population in NYC

• Experimenting with different artistic expressions

• Want “to work out of a response and need to redefine the image of man in terms of the Negro Experience I know best”

• Determined to embrace painting, Bearden formed “Spiral”, group of African American artists

• Spiral was seen as a response to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s which some embraced as fully as Bearden

Most Popular Media Expression

• The Collage or fragmented imagery became his most popular media expression

• Bearden’s early life in Charlotte NC became his fountain of images

• Railroads, trains, musical events, grandparents’ porches, baptisms, landscapes and painful and uplifting family practices.

Sample works

Out Chorus, an etching and aquatint.

Dreaming About Miss Anne & Lulu Belle, Collage on Board

Green Times Remembered, Collage on Board

Mecklenburg Autumn – December: Time of the Marsh Hawk,

Collage on Board

Heavy Freight - Mecklenburg Evening, Collage on Board

Junction Piquette , Fabric Collage

Descendant of the Harlem Renaissance

• In reality Romare was not a member of the group of African Americans who participated in the early days of the Harlem Renaissance.

• Romare was one who absorbed, observed, and visualized old ways and new ones and prospered as an artist by the legacy left to him by those who went before.

• Enlightenment and encouragement to create and express through the arts his believe in humanity and dignity of all people.

Sources• Alain Locke. The New Negro. An Interpretation. New York: Albert and Charles

Boni. 1925

• The Great Migration - http://www.biography.com/tv/classroom/harlem-renaissance#tgm

• Great Days In Harlem - http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmharlem1.html

• Harlem of the New Negro - http://www.levity.com/corduroy/harlem.htm

• Langston Hughes - http://redhotjazz.com/hughes.html

• The Harlem Renaissance - http://robinurton.com/history/Harlem.htm

• The Development of African American community in Harlem - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_Renaissance

• Romare Bearden, Southern Recollections. 2 September 2011 -8 January 2012. The Mint Museum. Amber Smith, Adjunct Project Manager, and Carla M. Hanzal, Curator of Contemporary Art. Museum Program.