Inspired by the memories of his family in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Bearden created domestic scenes that reflect the strength of Southerners under challenging circumstances. Here, a family of four gathers in a run-down shed for a meal and some music. United by everyday rituals, they are also brought together by Bearden's carefully structured format of rectangles and squares. As the artist noted in 1969, such compositions were influenced by his study of seventeenth-century Dutch paintings by Johannes Vermeer and Pieter de Hooch: "I came to some understanding of the way these painters controlled their big shapes, even when elements of different size and scale were included within those large shapes….When I begin a work now…I try only to establish the general layout of the composition. When that is accomplished, I attempt ever more definite statements, superimposing other materials over those I started with."
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Artwork Details
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Title:The Woodshed
Artist:Romare Bearden (American, Charlotte, North Carolina 1911–1988 New York)
Date:1969
Medium:Cut and pasted printed and colored papers, photostats, cloth, graphite, and sprayed ink on Masonite
Dimensions:40 1/2 × 50 1/2 in. (102.9 × 128.3 cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:George A. Hearn Fund, 1970
Object Number:1970.19
Inscription: Signed (upper right): Romare Bearden
the artist, New York (1969–70; sold through Cordier & Ekstrom, Inc., New York to MMA)
New York. Cordier & Ekstrom, Inc. "Romare Bearden: Recent Collages," February 11–March 7, 1970, no catalogue.
Bronx County Courthouse. "Paintings from the Metropolitan, Pinturas del Metropolitano," May 12–June 13, 1971, no. 14.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "20th Century Accessions, 1967–1974," March 7–April 23, 1974, no catalogue.
Syracuse, N.Y. Everson Museum of Art. "Mysteries: Women in the Art of Romare Bearden," September 5–October 26, 1975, no. 15.
Brooklyn. Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation. "Selected Works by Black Artists from the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 14–June 14, 1976, unnumbered cat.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "Two Centuries of Black American Art," September 30–November 21, 1976, no. 149.
Atlanta. High Museum of Art. "Two Centuries of Black American Art," January 8–February 20, 1977, no. 149.
Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas. "Two Centuries of Black American Art," March 30–May 15, 1977, no. 149.
Brooklyn Museum. "Two Centuries of Black American Art," June 25–August 21, 1977 (extended to September 5, 1977), no. 149.
Moscow. State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. "Representations of America," December 15, 1977–February 15, 1978, no catalogue.
Leningrad. State Hermitage Museum. "Representations of America," March 15–May 15, 1978, no catalogue.
Minsk, Belarus. Palace of Art. "Representations of America," June 15–August 15, 1978, no catalogue.
New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, The Arsenal. "Selected Works by Black Artists from the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art," February 7–March 30, 1979, no catalogue.
Jacksonville, Fla. Jacksonville Art Museum. "The Figure in 20th Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," February 9–April 21, 1985, unnumbered cat. (p. 39).
Oklahoma City. Oklahoma Museum of Art. "The Figure in 20th Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," May 5–June 30, 1985, unnumbered cat.
New York. National Academy of Design. "The Figure in 20th Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," July 16–September 1, 1985, unnumbered cat.
Evanston, Ill. Terra Museum of American Art. "The Figure in 20th Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 15–November 10, 1985, unnumbered cat.
Little Rock. Arkansas Arts Center. "The Figure in 20th Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," November 12, 1985–January 19, 1986, unnumbered cat.
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. "The Figure in 20th Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," February 9–March 30, 1986, unnumbered cat.
St. Paul. Minnesota Museum of Art. "The Figure in 20th Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 20–June 8, 1986, unnumbered cat.
Pleasantville, N. Y. Reader's Digest. "Faces and Figures: Selected Works by Black Artists from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," February 12–April 1, 1988, brochure no. 4.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "14 Americans," July 16, 1990–January 2, 1991, no catalogue.
Buffalo. Albright-Knox Art Gallery. "A Look At Romare Bearden," May 11–July 28, 2002, brochure no. 19.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Romare Bearden at the Met," October 19, 2004–March 6, 2005, no catalogue.
Charlotte, N. C. Mint Museum Uptown at Levine Center for the Arts. "Romare Bearden: Southern Recollections," September 2, 2011–January 8, 2012, unnumbered cat. (pl. 58).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art [The Met Breuer]. "Kerry James Marshall Selects: Works from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," October 25, 2016–January 29, 2017, no catalogue (p. 267 in "Kerry James Marshall: Mastry" exhibition catalogue).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Making The Met, 1870–2020," August 29, 2020–January 3, 2021, unnumbered cat. (fig. 238).
James E. Conlon and James E. Kennedy. "An Afro-American Slide Project." Art Journal 30 (Winter 1970–71), ill. p. 165 (detail).
Grace Glueck. "A Brueghel from Harlem." New York Times (February 22, 1970), p. D29, reviews Exh. New York 1970.
Hilton Kramer. "Black Experience and Modernist Art: Romare Bearden Uses Photos in Collages." New York Times (February 14, 1970), p. 23, reviews Exh. New York 1970.
James F. Pilgrim. Paintings from the Metropolitan, Pinturas del Metropolitano. Exh. cat., Bronx County Courthouse. New York, 1971, unpaginated, no. 14.
Lowery S. Sims. Selected Works by Black Artists from the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation. [New York], 1976, unpaginated.
Lowery Stokes Sims. The Figure in 20th Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., Jacksonville Art Museum. New York, 1984, pp. 9, 38–39, ill. (color).
John Brandenburg. "Museum's Offerings Tell Story of 20th Century America." Daily Oklahoman/Times (May 30, 1985), p. 15.
Michael Brenson. "Back in the City, a Display of the Figure in Modern Art." New York Times (August 2, 1985), p. C21.
Elyse Topalian. "Modern Art in the Met." Apollo 124 (October 1986), p. 362.
Lowery S. Sims. Faces and Figures: Selected Works by Black Artists from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. brochure, Reader's Digest, Pleasantville, N.Y. 1988, unpaginated, no. 4.
Lowery S. Sims. "African American Artists and Postmodernism: Reconsidering the Careers of Wifredo Lam, Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, and Robert Colescott." African American Visual Aesthetics: A Postmodernist View. Ed. David C. Driskell. Washington, 1995, p. 106, fig. 4.3.
Jae Emerling inRomare Bearden: Southern Recollections. Exh. cat., Mint Museum Uptown at Levine Center for the Arts. Charlotte, N.C., 2011, p. 68, colorpl. 58.
Richard J. Powell. "The Woodshed." Romare Bearden, American Modernist. Ed. Ruth Fine and Jacqueline Francis. Washington, D.C., 2011, pp. 201–6, ill. p. 200 (color), notes that "the woodshed" is a "jazz term for an artist's period of retreat into a private world of study, contemplation, and creative winnowing and rearranging," relating it to this work and Bearden's artistic practice during the 1950s and early 1960s.
Robert G. O'Meally. "'We Used to Say Stashed': Romare Bearden Paints the Blues." Romare Bearden, American Modernist. Ed. Ruth Fine and Jacqueline Francis. Washington, D.C., 2011, p. 61.
Kelly Baum inMaking The Met, 1870–2020. Ed. Andrea Bayer with Laura D. Corey. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2020, pp. 221, 256, fig. 238 (color).
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Romare Bearden (American, Charlotte, North Carolina 1911–1988 New York)
ca. 1971
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