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Untitled (Annunciation)

Watercolor, gouache, felt tip pen, and graphite on paper
Support size: 26 1/8 x 30 3/8 inches; Image size: 24 3/8 x 18 7/8 inches
Circa 1940–1946
Now on view: TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina

A native of Charlotte, North Carolina, Romare Bearden and his family were part of the Great Migration, when millions of Black families from the South relocated to the North seeking new job opportunities and a refuge from Jim Crow oppression; only, in many cases, to encounter further discrimination and segregation. Much of Bearden’s artistic vocabulary was inspired by his memories of the South, his experience of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and the Christianity of his childhood.

Bearden once stated, “Whatever the image, the only reality present is structure,” a sentiment very in-step with modernist tenets and especially on display in Annunciation. Some of the colors appear transparent, making the scene resemble a stained-glass window. With its segments of color, this work anticipates Bearden’s later facility with collage.

 

As published in: New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Volume 21: Art & Architecture

Other works by this artist