When Romare Bearden set out to illustrate Homer's epic poem "The Odyssey" in 1977, he drew on a complete repertoire of collage, watercolor and drawing methods, developed over a lifetime of artistic striving and transformation. The colorful and evocative exhibition "Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey" can be seen at Memphis Brooks Museum of Art through April 28.
A few years before, in 1973, Bearden had used the same techniques of collage and fragmented narrative when he produced a work that illustrated the struggles of a young radical lawyer not to be thrown off the City Council in Berkeley, Calif. Memphians know that young lawyer as civil rights activist, former Circuit Court judge, a founder of the National Civil Rights Museum and practicing attorney D'Army Bailey. The collage hangs in the living room of the historic house in Hein Park that he shares with his wife, Adrienne.
During the 1960s, Bearden (1911-1988) began to experiment with the collage method, combined with other mediums, to express the immediacy and impact of the civil rights movement and the reality, tinged with mythic elements, of life in black America; his work become more representational and socially conscious.
Bailey met Bearden in the Bay Area of California, where Bailey, a native Memphian — Booker T. Washington High School, 1959 — had gone to practice law in 1971.
"I was elected to the Berkeley City Council that year almost by accident," he said in a recent interview at his home. "I was young and having a good time, and four of us ran on a radical ticket, and three of us were elected. I had only been in Berkeley three months. It was an exciting and divisive time, and our election didn't sit well with the conservatives."
In fact, so outdone were the local conservatives that a recall movement was launched to get Bailey off the council.
"The council chambers had pictures of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington on the wall, and I suggested that we add a picture of Frederick Douglass," Bailey said. "The upshot was that the arts committee recommended asking Romare Bearden to execute a piece for us, and he agreed to do it for $18,000." The now-iconic mural, which grew far beyond a portrait of former slave and social reformer Frederick Douglass, is valued at over $1 million; a portion of it was adapted as the symbol of the city of Berkeley.
"Bearden came out to Berkeley, and we were part of a group that escorted him around the city," Bailey said. "He wanted to get to know the place, and he made two or three visits."
When Bailey asked Bearden for some pointers in assembling a collage, the artist countered by offering to create one for Bailey. The result combines photographs, magazine and newspaper clippings, handwritten statements and mottos "that summed up my ideas and philosophy," Bailey said. "He handwrote some of the themes of my campaign. He didn't charge me for doing it and even sent me a check for $25 to fight the recall."
That effort was fruitless.
"It was almost a foregone conclusion that I would lose the recall. The vote occurred on Aug. 21, 1973, and I lost. I stayed in Berkeley until June 1974 and then returned to Memphis and started practicing law with my brother (Walter Lee Bailey Jr.)."
The collage hangs in the living room of Bailey's house, next to a grand piano. Also in the room are two paintings by noted self-taught artist Clementine Hunter, a piece that Bailey bought in Berkeley at a fundraiser for Angela Davis and other works of art. Bailey seems to take special pride, however, in describing the background and gestation of "his" Bearden collage.
Asked if he had seen "Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey" at the Brooks, Bailey said, "Oh, yes. It's a beautiful exhibition. He was a great artist."
‘Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey'
Through April 28 at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Overton Park. The exhibition comprises 49 works from Bearden's adaptation of the ancient Greek saga "The Odyssey," with all of the characters cast as black. Go to brooksmuseum.org for more information.
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