Did You Know… Romare Bearden Lived On St. Martin?
Romare Bearden (Charlotte, 1911- New York, 1988) is well known as a famous artist of African-American descent. Amongst other topics, African-American unity was a recurring theme in his cubist and collage styled work, and via amongst others the Harlem “Spiral” group he was active within the American civil rights movement.
It is said he used arts to find a way to deal with the experiences he had as a soldier in the European theatre of World War II. Towards the end of his life, he received the prestigious National Medal of Arts from President Reagan. In addition, 25 years after his death, the National Gallery did a major overview exhibition of his life and work.
Little known by many visitors nowadays is that during the final decades of his life, Bearden lived on French side St. Martin. During this timeframe, he produced more paintings than ever before. Next to continuing his famed portrayals of the southern United States and his time in Harlem, he also painted carnival and other Caribbean inspired themes.
In 2006, Richard and Sally Price honored his hard labor on island in the book “Romare Bearden- the Caribbean Dimension”, a book appraised by many art historians. This overview of his Caribbean work is illustrated by interviews of friends, amongst which Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott, partially descending from St. Maarten ancestry himself.
Bearden allegedly said about St. Martin as a source of inspiration: “Art will go where the energy is. I find a great deal of energy in the Caribbean. ”
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