Palm Sunday Procession

Inscriptions

Signed, in green ink, lower left: Romare Bearden

Label

Palm Sunday Procession reflects Romare Bearden’s large-scale, mixed-media collage technique. Though his work is not part of Bearden’s Prevalence of Ritual portfolio, it shares the artist’s interest in ritual and ecclesiastical traditions. On Palm Sunday, churches around the world celebrate with processions to honor Christ’s entry into Jerusalem the Sunday before his crucifixion. Dressed in elaborate robes, Bearden’s figures hold palm fronds, which represent the palms laid down on the road before Christ as he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. Traditionally, these palms are subsequently burned and used the following year for Ash Wednesday, the first day of lent. Bearden incorporates black-and-white photographs of medieval wall paintings, which contrast with his use of vibrant color. Monumental, god-like figures fill the composition. The figures march forward dressed in ceremonial attire, holding palms of all sizes, united in their belief in Christ’s resurrection on Easter.

From the 2019 exhibition A Space for Dialogue 97, Black Bodies on the Cross, curated by Victoria McCraven '19, Homma Family Intern

Course History

WRIT 5, The View from the Balcony: Learning How You Learn, Prudence Merton, Winter 2013

SART 25, Painting I, Tom Ferrara, Fall 2013

SART 25, Painting I, Tom Ferrara, Spring 2014

SART 25, Painting I, Enrico Riley, Fall 2014

SART 76, Senior Seminar I, Brenda Garand, Winter 2015

SART 22, Figure Drawing, Brenda Garand, Winter 2015

SART 31, Painting II, Enrico Riley, Winter 2015

SART 31, Painting II, Thomas Ferrara, Spring 2019

SART 31/SART 72, Painting II/III, Jennifer Caine, Winter 2020

AAAS 88.19, Contemporary African-American Artists, Michael Chaney, Summer 2021

Studio Art 31.01, Studio Art 72.01, Painting II, III, Andrew Shea, Fall 2023

Exhibition History

A Space For Dialogue 10, The Power of (Re)Construction: Changing Perceptions of Black-American Identity, Mercedes Duff, Class of 2003, Class of 1954 Hood Museum of Art Curatorial Intern, Main Lobby, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 18-February 16, 2003.

A Space for Dialogue 97, Black Bodies on the Cross, Victoria McCraven, Class of 2019, Homma Family Intern, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, November 9, 2019-January 4, 2020.

Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 26,2009-March 15, 2010.

Romare Bearden: Collages, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 24-April 12, 1998.

Romare Bearden: The Prevalence of Ritual, Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York, March 23-June 9, 1971; National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia.

Second Stage of Modernism: Art from 1945 to the Present, William B. Jaffe, Evelyn A. Jaffe Hall, Churchill P. Lathrop, Friends, and Owen Robertson Cheatham Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 6-August 16, 1987.

The Art of Romare Bearden, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, September 14, 2003-January 4, 2004; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California, February 7-May 16, 2004; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas, June 20-September 12, 2004; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York, October 14, 2004-January 9, 2005; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, January 29-April 24, 2005.

The Art of Spectatorship: A History of Viewing from the Renaissance to the Present Day, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Art History 2, Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 19-April 6, 2008.

Publication History

The Art of Romare Bearden, New York: Harry W. Abrams, 1974, p. 132, pl. 50.

Romare Bearden: The Prevalence of Ritual, Exhibition Catalogue, 1971, p. 14.

Ruth Fine, The Art of Romare Bearden, Washington: National Gallery of Art, 2003, 334 pp., checklist no. 57, ill. p. 56.

Barbara J. MacAdam, Marks of Distinction, Two Hundred Years of American Drawings and Watercolors from the Hood Museum of Art, Manchester, Vermont: Hudson Hills Press, 2005, pp. 39, ill. p. 227.

Mercedes Duff, A Space For Dialogue 10, The Power of (Re)Construction: Changing Perceptions of Black-American Identity, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2003, ill. cover.

Brian P. Kennedy and Emily Shubert Burke, Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2009 p.138, no.109.

Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, Represent: 200 Years of African American Art in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2014, 210 pp., ill. p. 150.

John R. Stomberg, The Hood Now: Art and Inquiry at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019, p. 176, ill. plate no. 107.

Victoria McCraven, A Space for Dialogue 97, Black Bodies on the Cross, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2020.

Provenance

Cordier & Ekstrom, Inc., New York, New York; sold to Jane and Raphael Bernstein, Ridgewood, New Jersey; given to present collection, 1986.

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