Activity #13

Tomorrow I May Be Far Away was painted in 1966/1967 during the Black Art’s Movement by Romare Bearden. Influenced by Pablo Picasso and the Cubist movement and Picasso’s use of African Art(Cosmos) Bearden wanted to illustrate his view of the black American experience he shows views from the fast pace of a Harlem neighborhood and views from the down home peacefulness of rural North Carolina. (AP). African-American heritage and the expression of black identity was fundamental to his artistic expression. (Met). According to the Madison Museum of contemporary art Jazz influenced Bearden's art. His compositions often were likened to jazz, with its syncopated rhythms and improvisational structures. Bearden created his collages about situations and people familiar to him. Bearden’s used a collage using mostly newspaper and magazine clippings for this work which is his signature style. The time period of this work was 1967 during the Vietnam War. Possibly a family member just left to go off to war, Bearden shows the image of a train across the horizon. Trains were always a reoccurring symbol in Bearden’s work. “A train was always something that could take you away and could also bring you to where you were,” says Bearden. (Getlein 179).


The City from Greenwich Village is representational art and was painted in 1922 by John Sloan painted using oil on canvas. Sloan was a part of the Aschan School movement. The Ashcan School was a small group of artists who sought to document everyday life in turn-of-the-century New York City, capturing it in realistic and unglamorized paintings and etchings of urban street scenes. (Artcyclopedia). During this time period World War Foreign Debt Commission Established this commission was established by US Congress to negotiate with European nations the debs that they owed from World War I. (History Central). Possibly the artist wanted to show a view from the city after World War I ended and city life had returned to normal. John Sloan taught painting and exhibited his work in the new modern genre style depicting images of the city and its residents. (Lori).