Watercolor, gouache, brush and ink on cream wove paper, circa 1947-48. 620x470 mm; 24 1/2x18 1/2 inches. With a watercolor of a landscape on the verso.
Provenance: private New York collection.
This colorful, modernist watercolor, with its interwoven composition, is a strong example from Romare Bearden's 1948 Iliad series that he loosely based on Homer's account of the Trojan War. Bearden showed 16 variations on this theme at the Niveau Gallery that year. The brightly colored landscape on the verso likely dates from his earlier Rabelais series of 1947. Schwartzman p. 152.
