The Homeland of His Imagination: Romare Bearden's Southern Odyssey

FAIN: FA-55357-10

Glenda E. Gilmore
Yale University (New Haven, CT 06510-1703)

I will write a short book on five generations of the African American artist Romare Bearden's family, going back to his great-grandfather, who was enslaved to Woodrow Wilson's father. Grounded in the broad sweep of African American history from Emancipation to the Civil Rights Movement, I will document the family from traditional sources, most of which came to my notice when writing my two previous books, Gender and Jim Crow and Defying Dixie. The Beardens played bit parts in those books, but their family story is a compelling saga of middle-class black achievement in the face of wave after wave of white supremacy. Although I will ground the book in history, I will also try to get at history by using Bearden's works as an alternative archive. He called his work "the homeland of my imagination," and my analysis of it will be neither purely biographical nor art historical. Thinking about Bearden's art as an archive can offer a unique perspective on history and memory.

Associated Products

“Romare Bearden’s Mecklenburg Memories,” in Mary L. Corlett, Leslie King Hammond, Jae Emerling, Carla Hanzal, and Glenda Gilmore, Romare Bearden: Southern Recollections (London and New York: D Giles Ltd. October, 2011). (Article)
Title: “Romare Bearden’s Mecklenburg Memories,” in Mary L. Corlett, Leslie King Hammond, Jae Emerling, Carla Hanzal, and Glenda Gilmore, Romare Bearden: Southern Recollections (London and New York: D Giles Ltd. October, 2011).
Author: Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore
Abstract: An article about the influence of history and memory on the art of Romare Bearden published in the Mint Museum's Bearden Centennial Exhibition Catalogue.
Year: 2011
Primary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/romare-bearden-southern-recollections/oclc/751754935?referer=di&ht=edition
Primary URL Description: Worldcat entry.
Format: Other

Gilmore, Glenda Elizabeth. Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896-1920 (Book)
Title: Gilmore, Glenda Elizabeth. Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896-1920
Author: Gilmore, Glenda E
Year: 1996
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=9780807845967
Primary URL Description: WorldCat entry
Publisher: Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780807845967

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