Feb. 16, 2002 

Honor city's greatest artist, Romare Bearden
RICHARD MASCHAL

Two great discoveries affected the life and art of August Wilson, the great African American playwright. One was Bessie Smith. The other was Romare Bearden.

The man who would write "The Piano Lesson" was a 20-year-old poet in Pittsburgh in 1965 when he made the first find. Encountering Smith and the blues "was a watershed event," Wilson wrote in a foreword to "Romare Bearden: His Life and Art" by Myron Schwartzman. "It gave me a history."

Twelve years later, Wilson encountered Bearden, the Charlotte native whose paintings of African American life gave the playwright insight into how to turn the blues into a fulsome narrative.

"What I saw was black life presented on its own terms, on a grand and epic scale, with all its richness and fullness," he wrote.

Once Wilson stood outside Bearden's New York apartment door, but couldn't bring himself to knock. Wilson wonders what he would have said.

"I probably would just have looked at him ... and if I were wearing a hat, I would have taken it off in tribute."

Charlotte has an opportunity to follow the lead suggested by Wilson.The city has a chance to tip its hat to one of its most famous sons, and, at the same time, add to the city's artistic distinction.

Bearden, born in his great-grandfather's house at Second and Graham Streets in 1911, was the greatest African American artist of the 20th century. He looked to his birthplace for inspiration and subject matter. But Charlotte has not given him his due, or capitalized on the cultural opportunities memorializing him would bring.

Opportunities are at hand. The county park to be built in Third Ward, near where the artist was born, should be named for him.

And there are other ways for Charlotte to remember Bearden.

In August, the Mint Museum of Art will open "Charlotte's Own -- Romare Bearden," featuring Bearden work in area collections.Also, the Jerald Melberg Gallery also will open a Bearden show.

They should spark the building of a Bearden collection at the Mint, which owns only one Bearden painting. The museum should secure as many of the works in these exhibits as possible through purchase or loan.

But an overdue Bearden Gallery at the Mint could be more than paintings on the wall.

Enter Schwartzman, who wrote a fine Bearden biography.

When he interviewed Bearden, the artist sketched the buildings owned by his great-grandfather. Schwartzman sent a copy to me and said he would give the original to the Mint.

Moreover, he's willing to donate the tapes on which Bearden talks about the city he knew until he was a teen-ager.

You could enter a gallery, see works by Bearden, see photographs and artifacts on his life and Charlotte, and listen on headphones to Bearden.

The planned uptown park, located between Fourth, Second, Mint and Graham streets, offers another opportunity to honor Bearden and enrich our cultural life. The design of the park could be based on his life and work.

Strands of African American history pass through Bearden. His great-grandfather, Henry Kennedy, was almost certainly born into slavery. But during Reconstruction, he built a business.

Along with his parents, Bearden was part of the great black migration from South to North. He grew up in Pittsburgh and New York and was part of the upsurge of creativity known as the Harlem Renaissance.

Bearden works have been turned into public art in Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Maybe that could happen here.

The talk has been to name the park for evangelist and Charlotte native Billy Graham. But several points argue for Bearden.

The park will be in his neighborhood, a historically black one.

The design possibilities, richer than the statue of Graham envisioned by county commission chairman Parks Helms, also argue for Bearden Park.

And if the federal courthouse on West Trade Street is one day made into an uptown home for the Mint Museum, a park named for the city's greatest artist would be right behind it.

Naming the park is not a black or white issue. But it's surprising no African American politician has rallied to the cause. Where are you, Darrel Williams, an architect, park advocate and county commissioner? Where are you, mayor pro tem Patrick Cannon?

Here's an opportunity to do something great. And for once, a proposal for Charlotte that doesn't borrow some glittery idea from elsewhere.