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| CURATOR RUTH FINE | |
 October 27, 2003  |
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Ruth Fine, curator of the Romare
Bearden retrospective at the National Gallery of Art in Washington,
discusses Bearden's influences and his early works.
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JEFFREY BROWN: Let me start with, why did you want to put on this exhibition? RUTH FINE: Well, I had occasion twice to look at the work at the request of the family who wanted advice on how to care for the work after Bearden died. And each time I looked at it, I got increasingly interested by his use of collage and how it changed over the years from 1963 till he died in 1988. And the whole notion of artistic process and how artists work is something that's always been of interest to me. And the distinctiveness of Bearden's approach was kind of what got me interested in doing the show. JEFFREY BROWN: All right, let's go back here then to the earlier work. What was going on? They seem to be a dialogue or a study of European painters at the time? RUTH FINE: Well, Bearden -- who always claimed to have a degree in mathematics -- in fact, did have four years of art education; two years at Boston University and two years at N.Y.U. And he was very sophisticated in terms of art history and world art. And he was having an obvious dialogue with world art in his early work. He never stopped having a dialogue with world art. But he found his own methodology and subject about 1963. In the earlier work, you see him first paying attention to Mexican mural painters; then paying attention to cubism, in particular, Picasso. But you also see him pay attention to Byzantine art in the early work. He started experimenting with collage, as early as the middle 1950s; moving into a fairly abstract style, and eventually became what I suppose could be called an abstract expressionist for a number of years. JEFFREY BROWN: Are there particular paintings in the early years where you can see that dialogue you're talking about, with Picasso, for example? RUTH FINE: Yeah, there are two pictures -- an oil and a watercolor of the same image that is based -- that's from a series of works he did in 1946, based on a poem by Garcia Lorca, "The Lament for a Bullfighter." And it's very clear that he was looking at Picasso in those works, "Guernica" in particular, and I think you just see the head of the horse stretched in a very similar way as you see the horse in "Guernica." So that's one of the most clear. There's a painting called "Two Figures," that was done -- it's dated 1946 or circa 1946, I think it could well be 1947, which is when Miro was in this country and there are very clear Miro references in that work. But he started out early using African masks, which stayed with his work for the rest of his life. So, he started knowing who he was early on. JEFFREY BROWN: But, of course, he might have gotten that from Picasso, too... RUTH FINE: Absolutely, but he also... JEFFREY BROWN: Do you know which... RUTH FINE: I think it's... JEFFREY BROWN: ...if he got it from Picasso getting it from Africa? RUTH FINE: I think it's both. I think he got it from Picasso. I think he also got it by going to the Museum of Modern Art exhibition of African Art in 1935. Bearden's knowledge embraced Europe and Africa and Asia but, certainly, from the very beginning of his career, he was very concerned with African art and African-American issues. The show doesn't include any of his political cartoons, but from 1935 to 1937, he did a weekly political cartoon for the "Baltimore Afro American." And they're quite amazing, some of them are reproduced in the catalog. And they show him concerned about tacit segregation and the Depression and the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. So his concerns were rooted in what African-Americans, as well as what modernism in a broader sense. JEFFREY BROWN: Where did he get this desire or interest in -- you said he had a constant dialogue with world art? For example, I mean, do we know where any of this came from? RUTH FINE: Well, he was -- his parents were college educated. His family was very much at the center of the Harlem Renaissance --Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Paul Robeson, W.E.B. DuBoise were all the people he knew. And these were highly intelligent, curious, concerned people. And I think that's where the roots are. He talked, specifically in terms of art, he always discussed his debt to George Grosz, who was the one art teacher he did acknowledge. He studied with him at the Art Students' League and he credited him to introducing him to world art. His first course with Grosz was in 1932 and he studied again with him in 1935. So, as far as we know, that's where, but the sort of big curiosity would have come from his family and his roots. |
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