Apr 04, 2019 - Sale 2504

Sale 2504 - Lot 122

Unsold
Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000
ROMARE BEARDEN (1911 - 1988)
Tamarind Tree.

Watercolor on heavy wove paper, circa 1980. 762x559 mm; 30x22 inches. Signed in ink, lower right recto. Titled in ink, verso.

Provenance: Robbie Lee, Houston; private collection, Texas.

Tamarind Tree is an excellent example of Romare Bearden's experimentation in watercolor in the early 1980s. Watercolor is an important part in the artist's oeuvre beginning with his modernist Passion of Christ series painted in 1945. Bearden was influenced by the watercolors of the German expressionist master George Grosz who taught Bearden drawing at the Art Students League in New York in the early 1930s. In this late period of his career, Bearden displays a creative mastery of watercolor, particularly with the 1984 Obeah series. Bearden's late watercolors represent both a culmination of his artistic improvisation with the medium, and his awareness of the traditions of his second home on the Caribbean island of St. Martin.