Bearden in black & white

Romare Bearden’s long and varied career has generated a weighty shelf of art-historical scholarship, but various aspects of his life remain elusive. In May 2011, The New Criterion published the outstanding essay “Romare Bearden at 100” by David Yezzi, who begins by asserting that “Little enough is certain about the painter Romare Bearden (1911–88) that even the pronunciation of his name remains unclear.” At that time there was as yet one biography, Myron Schwartzman’s interview-reliant coffee-table book, Romare Bearden: His Life and Art (1990). Now there are more, including An American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden (2018) by Mary Schmidt Campbell, an art historian who knew Bearden, and a new volume, Romare Bearden in the Homeland...