Romare Bearden Original Watercolor Cityscape Painting

Artist: Romare Bearden
Title: Untitled
Medium: Original Watercolor on Paper
Size: Sheet measures 9.375" x 12.675"
Year: c. 1980
Inscription: Signed in pencil on front upper left
Documentation: Gallery certificate of authenticity; forthcoming inclusion in the Romare Bearden Digital Catalogue Raisonne, currently being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc.

"Untitled" (c. 1980) is a watercolor on paper by Romare Bearden, an American artist celebrated for his expansive contributions to twentieth-century modernism through painting, collage, printmaking, and works on paper. Bearden's career spanned nearly five decades and encompassed a wide range of visual strategies, from lyrical abstraction and narrative figuration to complex photomontage and collage techniques.

While he is perhaps best known for his richly textured collages that articulate the rhythms of African American life and cultural history, Bearden also produced watercolors of remarkable subtlety and expressive nuance throughout his career, often exploring color, atmosphere, and spatial relationships with a refined command of the medium. These works on paper reveal an artist deeply engaged with both formal concerns and the evocative potential of his subjects.

Bearden's work has been the focus of major exhibitions and retrospectives in leading institutions. Notable presentations include The Art of Romare Bearden at the National Gallery of Art, which surveyed more than one hundred works in a range of media, and comprehensive exhibitions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art that examined his role in American modernism. His pieces are represented in the permanent collections of major museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and The Studio Museum in Harlem, among others.

The present work is signed in pencil by the artist on the front upper left. The sheet measures 9 3/8 x 12 5/8 inches. This untitled watercolor is accompanied by a gallery certificate of authenticity and is slated for inclusion in the forthcoming Romare Bearden Digital Catalogue Raisonne, a scholarly project being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc.

About Romare Bearden

Romare Bearden (1911–1988) was a groundbreaking American artist renowned for his innovative collages that blended abstraction, figuration, and cultural narrative, profoundly influencing 20th-century modern art. Celebrated for depicting African American life through personal memory, art history, and social experience, he also excelled as a writer, educator, and advocate for artists of color.

Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden grew up mainly in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance. His culturally active parents introduced him to prominent writers, musicians, and thinkers, shaping his artistic vision. He studied mathematics and art at New York University and later engaged with European modernism at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Bearden's early work embraced Social Realism, tackling labor, community, and racial inequality. By the 1960s, influenced by Picasso, Matisse, and Cubism, he pioneered his signature collage technique—layering cut photographs, painted papers, and prints to create complex compositions evoking domestic scenes, music, religion, and migration in Black Southern and Northern communities.

Jazz and blues deeply informed his art, providing improvisational structure, repetition, and rhythmic syncopation that mirrored cultural identity's fragmented yet cohesive nature. He also worked in printmaking, painting, and drawing, using prints to broaden accessibility. In 1963, Bearden co-founded Spiral, a collective of African American artists addressing Black creativity amid the Civil Rights Movement. He championed artistic freedom and cultural self-determination through the group and his writings.

His work has been exhibited worldwide and is held in major collections. Bearden's enduring legacy shapes contemporary art discussions on identity, memory, and representation, cementing his status as one of America's most vital 20th-century artists.