<I>A Walk in Paradise Gardens</I>
date: label: Date
content: 1955
name: label: Created by
content: Romare Bearden, American, 1911 - 1988
label: Owned by
content: Barnett-Aden Gallery, American, 1943 - 1969
notes: label: Caption
content: Romare Bearden is best known for his collages that celebrate African life and community. However, earlier in his career, his work was firmly integrated within the school of American abstraction. Recalling that period, he stated, "I began experimenting in a radically different way. I started to play with pigments, as such, in marks and patches, distorting natural colors and representational objects." At this juncture, Bearden started to incorporate a range of elements: mathematics, jazz, his studies of classical Japanese portrait painters, and Western painters such as 17th-century Dutch artists Pieter de Hooch and Johannes Vermeer. These all served as sources of inspiration for the flatness of his abstraction and his approach to organizing his images within a pictorial space.
label: Description
content: This oil painting depicts three abstract figures. Formed out of small rectilinear shapes in bright colors, the figures appear to be moving across an equally abstracted background.
place: label: Place made
content: New York City, New York, United States, North and Central America
topic: label: Topic
content: African American
label: Topic
content: Abstraction
label: Topic
content: Art
label: Topic
content: Communities
label: Topic
content: Urban life
setName: label: See more items in
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture Collection
label: Classification
content: Visual Arts
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Robert L. Johnson
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture
identifier: label: Object number
content: 2015.2.2
objectType: label: Type
content: paintings
objectRights: label: Restrictions & Rights
content: © Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
label: Restrictions & Rights
content: Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: oil on fiberboard
label: Dimensions
content: H x W (painting): 24 × 20 in. (61 × 50.8 cm)
label: Dimensions
content: H x W x D (frame): 28 5/8 × 24 3/4 × 1 1/2 in. (72.7 × 62.9 × 3.8 cm)