Bearden Summertime boxed note cards

Summertime, which belongs to a small number of large-scale collages Romare Bearden created in the 1960s, exemplifies the artist's commitment to the African American experience. A woman eats an ice-cream cone in front of a brownstone, a man sits on a chair, and two oversized faces peer from behind window shades. The ice cream and open windows evoke the summer's heat. The woman's pose suggests a singer holding a microphone, and the title summons Cole Porter's lyric that "the living is easy." Yet the collage's active pattern of materials, its overwhelming size (56 x 44 inches), and the mask-like faces it presents undermine the simplicity of the scene. Within this work, Bearden successfully creates a tension between content and formal treatment that brings to mind the over-crowded and potentially explosive inner cities of the summer of 1967.

Ten 5 x 7" note cards with envelopes.