Color collagraph on thick wove paper, circa 1969. 340x440 mm; 13 3/8x17 3/8 inches, 5/8-inch margins. Signed in pencil, lower left. A superb impression with rich inking and strong color of this very scarce print.
We have not found another record of this print, apart from the one reproduced in Gelburg/Rosenberg.
Bearden began his first forays in printmaking with collographs, according to Gelburd/Rosenberg, while he was showing at the Kootz Gallery. The printer Mohammed O. Khalil observed a small run of approximately 10 works or unique impressions made at Blackburn's Print Workshop. This work is a version of the early collage Early Morning in the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art collection, Atlanta, and a variant of the illustrated collotype Sun and Candle. Ruth Fine links these experimental works to his early collaboration with Bob Blackburn - "The collagraph process grows directly from collage, the reason Blackburn saw it as a useful approach for Bearden. The name suggests the method: 'collage prints.'" She describes three types of matrices from which the Bearden prints were printed, the first being "collages from layered drawing papers, cardboard, sandpaper, and fabric such as burlap, and coated with a synthetic that would resist the absorption of the print ink, as with Untitled (Sun and Candle)." Ruth Fine, The Art of Romare Bearden, p. 60. Gelburd/Rosenberg 31.
