Romare Bearden: How the Civil Rights Movement impacted his career

Romare Bearden's name has become synonymous with both "Black art" and the collage medium in contemporary art surveys. These traits earned him recognition and awards three decades after the artist began to create art. This paper examines how Bearden came to realize his profound and memorable collage series amidst a decade of cultural upheavals and challenges faced by black Americans. The events surrounding the Civil Rights Movement in 1960s played a crucial role in developing Bearden's iconic collages as well as his diverse childhood living in the rural South and urban North.