The University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) will host Romare Bearden: Abstraction from February 5 thru May 15, 2022. UMMA will host this important exhibition as part of a national tour organized by the American Federation of Arts and the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, SUNY.  

Comprised of approximately 55 works by the ground-breaking African American artist, Romare Bearden: Abstraction presents the first in-depth examination of Bearden’s engagement with abstraction.
 
Through paintings, collages, watercolors and photostats ranging from the 1940s to the late 1960s, the exhibition explores and contextualizes Bearden’s important, but relatively unknown, body of abstract work alongside his early figural abstractions and more well-known figurative collages. 

Central to the exhibition are a group of Bearden’s rarely exhibited stain paintings created between 1952-1963 that reveal a masterfully distinctive experimentation with color and form unlike anything the artist had created before. This exhibition provides a chronology and context for the period during which he produced his abstractions, filling in missing information and bookending this decade of work. 

The exhibition originated at the Neuberger Museum of Art. The national tour of Romare Bearden: Abstraction launched in October 2021 with a presentation at the Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC (October 15, 2021 – January 9, 2022). UMMA will host the exhibition in Ann Arbor, MI (February 5 – May 15, 2022) before the show ends its national tour at the Frye Art Museum Seattle, WA (June 25 – September 18, 2022).

“Art historical narratives on abstract expressionism tend to exclude the contributions and innovations of Black artists, so I am so glad we were able to bring Romare Bearden: Abstraction to Ann Arbor,” said Ozi Uduma, Assistant Curator for Global Contemporary Art at UMMA. “We are the only Museum in the Midwest where visitors can view these rarely seen works of art from one of the most influential African American artists of our time, and these are incredible works that should be seen by everyone in the region.”

“Romare Bearden is one of the 20th century's great American artists," said Pauline Willis, Director and CEO of the American Federation of Arts. "While Bearden's significance is recognized by the public and art establishment alike, the many layers of innovation within his body of work are relatively unknown. It is with enormous pleasure that the American Federation of Arts presents the important traveling exhibition Romare Bearden: Abstraction that is valuable to scholars and will also bring joy and enrichment to audiences across the United States, reaching from the American South to the Midwest and the Pacific Northwest."