Something Over Something Else: Romare Bearden’s Profile Series

"Something Over Something Else": Romare Bearden’s Profile Series reunites for the first time thirty vibrant collages from this renowned series. In 1977, a "Profile" of Bearden by Calvin Tomkins in the New Yorker provoked the artist to reflect upon his childhood and maturity during the 1920s and 30s. The result was a two-part series that traces his journey from rural Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, to working-class Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and culminates with his treasured first studio in Manhattan’s Harlem neighborhood.

Yet transcending autobiography, Bearden’s Profile Series, accompanied by evocative texts co-written by Bearden and his friend the author Albert Murray, expresses a deep reverence for humanity and the struggles and triumphs of African Americans.