Romare Bearden
1911-1988
The Fall of Troy (from the Odysseus Suite)
Color screenprint on wove paper
1979
Signed and numbered
GG#63

In this series of prints, the artist creates a bridge between classical mythology and African American culture. The subjects, he argues, are timeless and point to the universality of the human condition. It is the story of a traveler's search for a way home. Bearden approached this theme of The Odyssey in various mediums in the 1970s. In Homer's tale, Odysseus is no longer seeking victory in battle but a reunion with family and a homecoming. Bearden relates the story to a historical timeline in African American history: the Middle Passage in the 17th-18th centuries, the survival of slavery until Emancipation at the end of the Civil War, the Great Migration, the struggles of Jim Crow, and finally, a restoration from exile to a place of dignity. (REF: Andrew Alexander, in a review of Black Odyssey, Carlos Museum, 2013).

18.25 x 22.25 in