Provenance: gift from the artist, collection of Richard V. Clarke, New York, with his name inscribed in crayon on the verso; private collection, New York.
This photomontage projection is an extremely scarce and important work by Romare Bearden in this experimental medium. We have found only one other impression in a larger format, 31x40 inches, in the collection of the Romare Bearden Foundation, New York.
Reginald Gammon, a fellow member of the Spiral Group, had first suggested to Romare Bearden that he enlarge his small collages to a much larger format with the use of photostat. The spiral group had sought to address the unrest of the early 1960s with "black and white" images. Bearden enlarged a group of his 1964 collages including The Street, which is now in the collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum. The printing unified the colors and surfaces in tones of gray and heightened the formal strength of the composition. They were first shown together in the exhibition Projections at Cordier & Ekstrom in New York in October of 1964. Schwartzman pp. 210-212.
