Romare Bearden

Life and work

Romare Bearden was an American painter, collagist and printmaker, born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1911 and raised largely in Harlem and Pittsburgh. He trained as a painter in the social realist idiom of the 1930s and 1940s before turning, from the 1960s onward, to the cut paper collage that defines his reputation today. In 1963 he was a founding member of Spiral, a group of Black artists in New York who met to discuss how art could respond to the civil rights movement. His mature collages layer photographs, magazine clippings, painted paper and fabric into scenes of the rural South, Harlem street life, blues and jazz clubs, and the landscape of Martinique and other Caribbean islands he visited later in life. He died in 1988. The Museum of Modern Art gave him a retrospective in 1971, and the National Gallery of Art mounted the most comprehensive survey of his career in 2003, a show that later traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art and to museums in San Francisco, Dallas and Atlanta.

Disciplines and the market

Bearden worked across painting, collage, watercolor, oil monotype and a large body of screenprints and lithographs made in editions. The saleroom treats these differently. Unique collages on board or paper, built up from cut and pasted papers, are his scarcest works and draw the strongest prices. Watercolors and oil monotypes, often studies of Caribbean landscape or figures, sell in a middle range. Signed editions, prints made in runs of several dozen or more, are the most liquid and least expensive way to own his work, and unsigned or artist's proof impressions trade lower still. LLB Auction has offered one work by Bearden to date, which did not sell, a reminder that even an artist with a long auction history elsewhere can see individual lots trade thinly.

What a specialist examines

A specialist examining a Bearden work first checks the signature, usually placed by hand in a lower corner of a collage or watercolor, against known examples, since Bearden sometimes signed pieces well after they were made or gave work away unsigned. Dating relies on the materials used, such as photostat, particular papers, or Masonite panel, and on comparison with documented series such as the Projections works of the 1960s or the Profile and Caribbean groups of later decades. Provenance matters especially for Bearden, who often sold or gave work directly from his studio without paperwork, so a chain of ownership back to the artist, to an early dealer, or to a documented exhibition strengthens a work considerably. Exhibition history is checked against museum and gallery records. For prints, the edition size, the numbering, and whether a sheet is signed or a proof all affect value. The body that reviews documentation for Bearden's work is listed under Career.

Market position

At auction, Bearden's unique collages have brought the strongest results. The Lantern, a 1980 collage on board, sold at Phillips in 2024 for $27,940, and Green, a 1971 collage on board, sold at Phillips in 2023 for $50,800. Works on paper trade lower: Storyville, an oil monotype, sold at Phillips in 2025 for $12,700, and Rain Forest Martinique, a 1976 watercolor, sold at Phillips the same year for $8,255. Man Seated with Rooster, a 1970 watercolor, sold at Swann Galleries in 2025 for $20,000 with fees included, and Martinique Rainforest II, another 1976 watercolor, sold at Bonhams in 2018 for $10,000. Together these results show a market that rewards unique collages well beyond works on paper and editions, with active bidding spread across several international houses.

Preparing a valuation request

A seller preparing to consign a work by Bearden should gather any invoice, gift letter or correspondence documenting how the piece was acquired, together with clear photographs of the front and the back, including the signature and any inscriptions, framer's labels or gallery stamps on the verso. Exact medium, support and dimensions should be recorded, along with the approximate date of execution if known. A condition report noting any tears, losses, foxing, fading or old repairs matters given the fragility of paper and collage elements. If the work has appeared in a museum or gallery exhibition, catalogue or publication, that history should be gathered, since it can be checked against the sources listed under Career. Any archive or reference number already associated with the piece should be kept with the file as well.