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This week while perusing our art collection here at DU, this Romare Bearden collage caught my eye. Before I even realized it was a work by Bearden, I was struck by the colorful simplicity. Untitled (Martin Luther King collage) is representative of Bearden’s torn paper collage technique, but it also shows a slightly different feel with the smooth expanse of brightly colored sky and silhouetted figures in contrast to his more frequent use of highly textured paper layered with graphite or ink. A Charlotte, North Carolina native, Bearden spent most of his life in New York City. He is best known as a visual artist, but also as a writer, social worker, and set designer.
Above: Romare Bearden, Untitled (Martin Luther King, Jr. collage), 1968