Romare Bearden

"What I saw was black life, presented on its own terms, on a grand and epic scale, with all its richness and fullness, in a language that was vibrant and which, made attendant to everyday life, ennobled it, affirmed its value, and exalted its presence… It defined not only the character of black American life, but also its conscience." ~ August Wilson on Romare Bearden

Romare Bearden was born on September 2, 1911 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and his family moved to Harlem three years later. His mother was New York editor for the Chicago Defender, a position which introduced her to leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Bearden spent summers in North Carolina and graduated from Peabody High School in Pittsburgh while living with his grandparents.

He then attended New York University, graduating in 1935 with a degree in education. He began his art career during college with cartoons published in the campus magazine and national publications such as Colliers and The Saturday Evening Post. After graduation he studied at the art Students League under George Grosz, primarily painting scenes of the American south. He also began working for the New York City Department of Social Services as a caseworker for the gypsy population, a position he held until 1969.

Morning

After serving in Europe with the U. S. Army during World War II, Bearden returned to Europe to study at the Sorbonne in Paris where his work was strongly influenced by Picasso and Matisse. Critic Hilton Kramer referred to his style as "patchwork cubism". It also encompasses global artforms such as Mexican murals, African masks and textures, Japanese prints and Chinese landscapes, while emphasizing social realism and Bearden's personal experience.

Although working in a variety of mediums he is best know for his collages, one of which was on the cover of Time in 1968, and Encyclopedia Britannica refers to him as "the preeminent collagist in the U.S." Many of his public murals are based on his collages, such as the 10' by 16' Berkeley - The City and Its People in the Berkeley, California, City Hall, and Pittsburgh Recollections at the Gateway subway station in Pittsburgh, which is valued at $15 million. Bearden also did book illustrations and set designs for the Alvin Ailey Dance Company in Harlem. He wrote three books on African American art, and published numerous essays and reviews. In the early 1950's he was a songwriter, with his Sea Breeze being recorded by Billy Eckstine and Dizzy Gillespie. In 2003 Branford Marsalis recorded a CD of his songs. There is much musical imagery in Bearden's work, and his Harlem studio was above the Apollo Theater.

Bearden died in New York City on March 12, 1988 at the age of 76. The Romare Bearden Foundation was established two years later to preserve his legacy and to support young artists.

"I think the artist has to be something like a whale, swimming with his mouth wide open, absorbing everything until he has what he really needs. When he finds that, he can start to make limitations. And then he really begins to grow." ~ Romare Bearden

Anna Julia Cooper

"It is not the intelligent woman v. the ignorant woman; nor the white woman v. the black, the brown, and the red, it is not even the cause of woman v. man. Nay, tis womans strongest vindication for speaking that the world needs to hear her voice."

Anna Julia Haywood was born in Raleigh, North Carolina on August 10, 1858 to Hannah Stanley Haywood, an enslaved woman, and George Washington Haywood, her master. She attended St. Augustine's Normal School and Collegiate Institute, an elementary and teachers' training school in Raleigh, where she battled to take the courses usually reserved for boys.

After graduation she married George Cooper, a Bahamian-born Greek instructor, who passed away two years later. She then enrolled in Ohio's Oberlin College, again insisting on taking the "gentleman's course", graduating in 1884. She taught briefly, then returned to Oberlin to earn a master's degree in mathematics in 1887. She then was hired to teach math and science at M Street High School in Washington, DC, later known as Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School, and became principal in 1902.

Cooper began coursework on her doctorate at Columbia University in 1914, while continuing her duties at M Street and after the death of her brother raising his five grandchildren. She transferred to the University of Paris Sorbonne, receiving her degree in 1925 at the age of 64 and becoming only the fourth African American woman to earn a doctorate. She continued working at M Street until her retirement in 1930, and then became president of Frelinghuysen University, a night school for working people. She stepped down as president in 1940, but served as registrar for another 10 years.

Cooper's only book, A Voice from the South: By a Woman from the South, published in 1892, established her as the first African American feminist. She was a speaker at the World's Congress of Representative Women at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair to a primarily white audience, saying "I speak for the colored women of the South, because it is there that the millions of blacks in this country have watered the soil with blood and tears, and it is there too that the colored woman of America has made her characteristic history, and there her destiny is evolving." She was also one of the few female speakers at the 1900 First Pan African Conference in London organized by W. E. B. DuBois.

Cooper founded the Colored Women's League of Washington in 1892, and was instrumental in starting YWCA chapters for African American women. She also helped to organize the first chapter of Campfire Girls. She died  on February 27, 1964 at the age of 105.