Beschreibung:

Romare Bearden American, 1911-1988 Morning Cul de Sac, circa 1985 American, 1911-1988 Morning Cul de Sac, circa 1985 Signed r./bear/den (ul) and titled on the reverse Watercolor on paper 8 1/8 x 10 1/2 inches Cul de Sac, referred to in the title of the present work, is a small hamlet on the French side of the Caribbean island of St. Martin, where Romare Bearden and his wife, Nanette, lived for extended periods in the 1970s and 1980s. Nanette was born on the island, which Bearden considered a mystical place, where the mythology that makes life bearable could be found. "New York City [took] its toll and he would travel to St. Martin to be rejuvenated, to refresh his creative spirit. He was drawn to the people of the island who, along with the sun, the water, and the food, were a tonic to him." [Sally Price, Richard Price, Romare Bearden The Caribbean Dimension. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006, p. 49.] Wherever Bearden went on the island, his painterly eye was active. In an autobiographical piece written five years before his death for the New York Times Magazine, he wrote of his life on St. Martin. With vivid, evocative language he described the tropical milieu that inspired later works such as the vibrant scene depicted in Morning Cul de Sac: "On some days, after going to Le Galion, I drove around the northern section of the island, past the French village of Cul de Sac and the small airport, into Grande [sic] Case, a little village. which touches the Caribbean Sea. This long scimitar-curved beach is one of the best on the island, and on it are nets drying in odd loops, boat bottoms being scraped and painted and fishing-gear pulleys being repaired...Sometimes I visit Colombier, a luxuriant valley on the underside of Paradise Peak, the highest point on the island. This deep valley, draining the mountainside, causes everything to grow profusely and large.... On these grounds I have seen the bird of paradise flower, chenille plants, poinsettia, anthurium, a cannon-ball tree, and many other plants, flowers and trees I do not recognize." "Art will go where energy is. I expect a convincing outpouring of creative energy from lands touched by the Caribbean Sea." [Romare Bearden, The New York Times Magazine, as quoted in Sally Price, Richard Price. "Romare Bearden: The Caribbean Dimension", op cit, pp. 49-50.
Slight cracquelure where medium is thickly applied. Small area of loss 3 inches from left, 1 inch from lower edge.