75
●
ROMARE BEARDEN (1911 - 1988)
Ritual Bayou
.
Set of 6 editioned collages, color photo-lithograph mounted on finished plywood, as issued, 1971.
Each approx. 394x508 mm; 15
1
/
2
x20 inches. Each signed and numbered 18/75 in ink. Published by
Sherwood Publishers, NewYork.
The individual titles are:
Memories
*
Reunion
*
Ritual Bayou
*
Carolina Interior
*
Mississippi Monday
*
Byzantine Frieze
.
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist; thence by descent to the current owner, private
collection, NewYork.
This is a very scarce complete set from Romare Bearden’s brief experimentation with editioned
collages in the early 1970s. Each was made from photo-lithographs printed from collages Bearden
had shown in the 1971 Museum of Modern Art, NewYork, exhibition,
Romare Bearden:The Prevalence
of Ritual
and the 1975 Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, exhibition,
Mysteries:Women in the Art of
Romare Bearden
.
However, it is not known, and very unlikely, that Bearden completed the intended edition of 75—
it was an overwhelming project to match and collage the prints. Mary Lee Corlett in
From Process
to Print Graphic Works by Romare Bearden
describes the overly ambitious production commissioned
by Sam Shore, owner of Shorewood Atelier, NewYork. Shore was a major Bearden collector and
donated
The Block
to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1978. Bearden and his publisher had
originally selected 18 collages, and planned three different sets of six for the project. But the artist
only made multiples from the first six collages. Swann Galleries sold the only other known complete
set at auction on February 27, 2011. Corlett p. 13.
[20,000/30,000]
