05/27/2026
COLLECTION SPOTLIGHT! ✨
Romare Bearden is one of the most significant American artists of the twentieth century. His creativity exceeded the bounds of the visual arts to encompass musical composition, costume design, children's literature, historical scholarship, and social activism. His collages, the medium for which he is probably best known, usually foregrounded African American experience, whether in the rural South or the urban North. In recognition of his many contributions to the culture of the United States, President Ronald Reagan awarded Bearden the National Medal of Arts in 1987.
"Madeline Jones's Wonderful Garden" is an exemplary collage from the late 1970s, one of the most productive moments of the artist's career. The theme, a celebration of fecundity and bounty, appears frequently throughout art history, from Botticelli's Primavera to Childe Hassam's portraits of Celia Thaxter tending flowers. This piece is notable for its intricately cut-out elements and its heavily worked surface, comprised of almost every media for which Bearden is known: ink washes, graphite lines, and intentional scuffing. The specific subject, a memory from the artist's childhood days in Mecklenburg, North Carolina, makes an appealing connection to the renowned Olmsted plantings that abut The Columbus Museum.
