Bearden, Romare
- Eleanor F. Wedge
Extract
Bearden, Romare (02 September 1911–11 March 1988), artist, was born Romare Howard Bearden in Charlotte, North Carolina, the son of R. Howard Bearden, a grocer, and Bessye Johnson. When Bearden was about four years old the family moved to New York, settling in Harlem, where he went to public school and his parents developed a wide network of acquaintances among the Harlem jazz musicians and intellectuals of the day. His father later became an inspector for the New York Board of Health; his mother, a civic leader. Bearden finished high school in Pittsburgh, however, having lived there for a time with his grandmother. In 1932, after two years at Boston University, he transferred to New York University, where he did illustrations for the undergraduate humor magazine and earned a B.S. degree in mathematics in 1935. For the next two years he contributed political cartoons to the ...
