?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 30,000 - $ 40,000
ROMARE BEARDEN (1911 - 1988) Untitled (Woman and Rooster).
Watercolor and pencil on wove paper, circa 1978 - 1983. 762x565 mm; 30x14 1/4 inches. Signed in pencil, upper right.
Provenance: Russell L. Goings, New York; Mary Hinkson, New York; thence by descent to the current owner, private collection, New York.
Mary Hinkson was one of Martha Graham's most important leading dancers and performed with the company from the 1950s through the early '70s. In 1953, Hinkson was one of the first two black dancers invited to join the Martha Graham Dance Company. The same year, Hinkson achieved the title of principal dancer in Bluebeard's Castle at the New York City Opera. Hinkson also worked with Alvin Ailey and Harry Belafonte, and taught at Juilliard School of Music, Dance Theatre of Harlem, and the Ailey School.
This large and vibrant watercolor by Romare Bearden is of an important and re-occurring subject in his artwork. The image of a woman feeding a rooster has appeared in Bearden's iconography since his 1964 collage Watching the Good Trains Go By. This watercolor is from his late 1970s through the early 1980s body of work which portray domestic rurals scenes in Mecklenburg, North Carolina, images from his childhood memories. In the catalogue to the 2012 Mint Museum exhibition Romare Bearden - Southern Recollections, Dr. Leslie King-Hammond points out how "in each of these scenes, a woman plays a powerful role in the management, organization and mediation of routine tasks, which have been elevated to rituals to create order and meaning." Hanzal p. 95.
