Watercolor, gouache, brush and ink on cream wove paper, circa 1948. 620x470 mm; 24 1/2x18 1/2 inches. Signed in ink, upper right. With a watercolor of a landscape on the verso. 3-inch repaired tear, right margin.
Provenance: ex-collection the artist; private New York collection.
This modernist watercolor with its interwoven composition is from the Iliad series of 1948 that Bearden loosely based on the heroic themes 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 the earlier Rabelais series of 1947. Schwartzman p. 152.
