Romare Bearden - Hardcover

Ruth Fine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0764929798 ISBN 13: 9780764929793

Publisher: Pomegranate, 2004

Synopsis

Stewart, the senior staff photographer for Jazz at Lincoln Center, and a longtime friend of Bearden, photographed the artist from the late 1970s until Bearden's death in 1988. A select group of the b&w photos are collected in this volume, each accompanied by a brief caption of the places and people depicted, many of them African-American luminaries of art, music, and dance. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

About this title

About the Author

Jan Greenberg is the author of six books on American art and architecture and seven works of fiction for young readers. Her many awards include an ALA Notable, School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, Booklist Editor's Choice, IRA Teacher's Choice, a Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book, and a Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor. She was the editor of Heart to Heart; New Poems Inspired by Twentieth-Century American Art, which received the Michael L. Printz Honor Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature from the American Library Association.

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-8-Greenberg's exploration of Bearden's art is filled with large, full-color reproductions, primarily of his mature works. The illustrations occasionally fill an entire page, and give readers an excellent overview of Bearden's style and subject matter. Some photographs of the artist are included as well. Using the collages and lithographs to reveal biographical snippets and memories results in disjointed and choppy text, both in sentence structure and in subject matter. The author hops around from one point to another with little warning or set up. Her admiration for her subject comes across clearly: "When we look at his paintings, we feel we could be right there with him running through a cotton field in North Carolina or sitting on the front stoop of a tenement in Harlem." The time line includes some new research, most notably that Bearden graduated from New York University with a degree in education, when previous accounts cited his degree as in mathematics. However, the date of his marriage to Nanette Rohan is given as 1951, when it was actually 1954. The pagination is also problematic, citing the wrong pages for quotes within the book. Also, there is nothing within the text of the book to indicate that a further explanation of a quote or definition of a term is located in the notes or glossary. Still, for its illustrations alone, schools or libraries with a high interest in art may wish to purchase this book.
Heather E. Miller, Homewood Public Library, AL
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pomegranate
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0764929798
• ISBN 13: 9780764929793
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 144