This image is presented as a "thumbnail" because it is protected by copyright. The Brooklyn Museum respects the rights of artists who retain the copyright to their work.
Wizard's Domaine
Romare Bearden
Contemporary Art
On View:
With a kaleidoscopic array of brilliant colors and bold geometric patterns, Romare Bearden evoked the mystery and vitality of African spiritual traditions in Wizard’s Domaine. Although there is no clear narrative, the white-robed figure at right seems to be entreating the winged character of the wizard, gazing down on his domain from the sky. The remainder of the composition is densely packed with the forms of a building, other figures and animals, and plants, as well as abstract symbols and decorative passages.
Throughout his career, Bearden was particularly interested in the African American experience, but he also believed that a universal “prevalence of ritual” united people across generations and cultures. He drew stylistic inspiration from a variety of sources, including African art, Cubist and Dadaist collage, jazz music, and Caribbean landscapes.
This work has been placed on view as part of Romare Bearden: 20th Century American Master, a centennial tribute organized by the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Romare Bearden Foundation. Events and installations nationwide mark the hundredth anniversary of Bearden’s birth. For more information, visit beardencentennial.org. To find out where to view other Bearden artworks in the tristate area between now and September 2012, visit studiomuseum.org.
Born in North Carolina, Bearden moved to Harlem with his family in 1920. He produced his earliest work as a cartoonist for school publications at Boston University and New York University. While at NYU, he took art classes at the Art Students League. Following his service in the U.S. Army during World War II, Bearden studied philosophy in Paris, where he came into contact with modernist artists. Back in New York, he supported himself as a songwriter and a social worker in the early 1950s and then resumed his work as an artist in the 1960s. He was a founding member of Spiral, a collective of African American artists formed in 1963 to explore their role in American art and society. During this period, Bearden began making the widely acclaimed collages that became the hallmark of his oeuvre.
Throughout his career, Bearden was particularly interested in the African American experience, but he also believed that a universal “prevalence of ritual” united people across generations and cultures. He drew stylistic inspiration from a variety of sources, including African art, Cubist and Dadaist collage, jazz music, and Caribbean landscapes.
This work has been placed on view as part of Romare Bearden: 20th Century American Master, a centennial tribute organized by the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Romare Bearden Foundation. Events and installations nationwide mark the hundredth anniversary of Bearden’s birth. For more information, visit beardencentennial.org. To find out where to view other Bearden artworks in the tristate area between now and September 2012, visit studiomuseum.org.
Born in North Carolina, Bearden moved to Harlem with his family in 1920. He produced his earliest work as a cartoonist for school publications at Boston University and New York University. While at NYU, he took art classes at the Art Students League. Following his service in the U.S. Army during World War II, Bearden studied philosophy in Paris, where he came into contact with modernist artists. Back in New York, he supported himself as a songwriter and a social worker in the early 1950s and then resumed his work as an artist in the 1960s. He was a founding member of Spiral, a collective of African American artists formed in 1963 to explore their role in American art and society. During this period, Bearden began making the widely acclaimed collages that became the hallmark of his oeuvre.
MEDIUM
Watercolor over pencil on paper
DATES
ca. 1970s
DIMENSIONS
19 × 24 in. (48.3 × 61 cm)
frame: 27 × 35 × 2 in. (68.6 × 88.9 × 5.1 cm) (show scale)
COLLECTIONS
Contemporary Art
ACCESSION NUMBER
2004.30.2
CREDIT LINE
Gift of The Beatrice and Samuel A. Seaver Foundation
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is not on view
CAPTION
Romare Bearden (American, 1911–1988). Wizard's Domaine, ca. 1970s. Watercolor over pencil on paper, 19 × 24 in. (48.3 × 61 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of The Beatrice and Samuel A. Seaver Foundation, 2004.30.2. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2004.30.2.jpg)
IMAGE
overall, 2004.30.2.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT
© artist or artist's estate
Copyright for this work may be controlled by the artist, the artist's estate, or other rights holders. A more detailed analysis of its rights history may, however, place it in the public domain.
The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act.
For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch.
For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright.
If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.
