Romare Bearden

The artist has to be something like a whale swimming with his mouth wide open, absorbing everything until he has what he…

— Romare Bearden

It was not my aim to paint about the Negro in America in terms of propaganda. It is to depict the life…

— Romare Bearden

My purpose is to paint the life of my people as I know it.

— Romare Bearden

The most difficult object in painting is yourself because you're always at issue

— Romare Bearden

The function of the artist is to organize the facets of life according to his imagination.

— Romare Bearden

Art is the soul of a people.

— Romare Bearden

The essence of art is to recapturel the fantasy and the imagination of a child again, but without the innocence of a…

— Romare Bearden

Painting is a self-disciplined activity that you have to learn by yourself.

— Romare Bearden

If you're any kind of artist, you make a miraculous journey, and you come back and make some statements in shapes and…

— Romare Bearden

But no one, when you stop to think, has ever equated abstract expressionism as a movement with jazz music. It's based on…

— Romare Bearden

Memory embellishes Life. Forgetfulness makes it possible.

— Romare Bearden

The artist has to be exactly the opposite [of people singing the song, I've gotta be Me,] and transcend himself as he…

— Romare Bearden

Practically all great artists accept the influence of others. But... the artist with vision sees his material, chooses, changes, and by integrating…

— Romare Bearden

You don't paint what you see, you paint what you feel.

— Romare Bearden

Painting is the act of discovery and you're constantly enlarging your horizon or finding yourself every time you paint.

— Romare Bearden

Black art has always existed. It just hasn't been looked for in the right places.

— Romare Bearden

Sometimes the mind relives things very clearly for us...There are roads out of secret places within us along which we all must…

— Romare Bearden

The artist confronts chaos. The whole thing of art is, how do you organize chaos?

— Romare Bearden

What I've attempted to do is establish a world through art in which the validity of my Negro experience could live and…

— Romare Bearden

When I conjure these memories, they are of the present to me, because after all, the artist is a kind of enchanter…

— Romare Bearden

Painting and art cannot be taught. You can save time if someone tells you to put blue and yellow together to make…

— Romare Bearden

You should always respect what you are and your culture because if your art is going to mean anything, that is where…

— Romare Bearden

You put down one color and it calls for an answer. You have to look at it like a melody.

— Romare Bearden

Every artist wants his work to be permanent. But what is? The Aswan Dam covered some of the greatest art in the…

— Romare Bearden

I want to see how life can triumph.

— Romare Bearden