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Over and over again in his work, Bearden turned to a complex set of symbols. They included masks, large hands, trains, suns and moons, “conjur” or medicine women, music and musicians, and animals of all kinds. Moonlight Express features several of these motifs. At left, the artist’s iconic train carried African Americans from their native South to new lives in the North, and sometimes back south again. In a dark forest, white birds spread their wings, which glow in the light of a full moon. And, in the lower left, Bearden has included the figure of a woman. Her nudity and her presence in the forest mark her clearly as a conjur woman, a kind of voodoo priestess who lends a note of mystery to the scene.
Bearden exhibited the Profile/Part I, The Twenties: Mecklenburg County series at Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery in New York in 1978. Working in collaboration with the writer Albert Murray, Bearden composed captions for each collage and wrote them directly on the wall to the right of the piece. For Moonlight Express, he wrote, “Sometimes at night I used to dream of being the one who was running the train.” For the related collage Daybreak Express, he wrote, “You could tell not only what train it was but also who the engineer was by the sound of the whistle.” As art historian Stephanie Heydt notes, “The critic for Arts Magazine … felt the ‘short, rhythmic texts’ spun a ‘continuous thread’ to ‘incidents and persons from the artist’s past.’” [1]
Bearden’s Profile series was critically well-received. A review in the New York Amsterdam News called it the “finest Mr. Bearden has done to date,” while Hilton Kramer in the New York Times deemed the work the “most personal and most ‘literary’ he has given us yet.” [2] The success of the series led Bearden to create a Profile/Part II series in 1981, subtitled The Thirties. The second series recalled Bearden’s years in Manhattan and Harlem. It was also on view at Cordier & Ekstrom.
Moonlight Express was included in a 2019 exhibition at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta that reunited most of the two Profile series. Called Something Over Something Else: Romare Bearden’s Profile Series, the exhibition took its title from a 1977 New Yorker profile of Bearden by Calvin Tomkins. Tomkins based the article’s title on Bearden’s description of his collage process: “Putting Something Over Something Else.” In the article, Tomkins quoted Bearden as he recalled his first ventures into collage: “I really think that the art of painting is the art of putting something over something else, and in a way these new pictures of mine, while they used representational images, were more abstract than the work I’d been doing before.” [3] After years of experimenting with painting, Bearden produced his most innovative work when he arrived at collage. Moonlight Express shows him working at the height of his creative powers.
[1] Stephanie Mayer Heydt, “Self-Revealing: Autobiography, Narrative, and Bearden’s Profile Series,” in Something Over Something Else: Romare Bearden’s Profile Series, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, in association with University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2019, p. 26.
[2] Ibid., p. 24.
[3] Romare Bearden, quoted in Calvin Tomkins, “Profiles: Putting Something Over Something Else,” The New Yorker, November 28, 1977. Reproduced in Something Over Something Else: Romare Bearden’s Profile Series, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, in association with University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2019, p. 145.
Exhibition History2019 - 2020
Something Over Something Else: Romare Bearden’s Profile Series
High Museum of Art, Atlanta (9/14/2019 - 2/2/2020)
Cincinnati Art Msuem (2/28/2020 - 6/21/2020)
2022
Still I Rise: The Black Experince at Reynolda
Reynolda House Museum of American Art
Published ReferencesCalvin Tomkins, “Profiles: Putting Something Over Something Else,” The New Yorker, November 28, 1977.
Stephanie Mayer Heydt, “Self-Revealing: Autobiography, Narrative, and Bearden’s Profile Series,” in Something Over Something Else: Romare Bearden’s Profile Series, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, in association with University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2019, p. 26.
DepartmentCollection of Barbara B. Millhouse
Moonlight Express
Artist
Romare Bearden
(1911 - 1988)
Date1978
Mediumcollage on paper
DimensionsImage: 14 × 20 in. (35.6 × 50.8 cm)
Frame: 20 5/8 × 27 1/8 in. (52.4 × 68.9 cm)
Signedromare bearden
Credit LinePromised gift of Barbara B. Millhouse
Copyright© 2021 Romare Bearden Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artist Rights Society (ARS), NY
Object numberIL2020.1.2
DescriptionRomare Bearden is celebrated as an innovative artist, especially in the medium of collage. His work integrates paint, paper, and images cut out of magazines and newspapers. Moonlight Express is part of an autobiographical series Bearden created in 1978. Entitled Profile/Part I, The Twenties: Mecklenburg County, the series captures Bearden’s memories of his childhood in North Carolina. Other collages in the series include School Bell Time; High Cotton, Mother and Child; Railroad Shack Sporting House; and Dinner Before Revival Meeting. Moonlight Express is related thematically to Daybreak Express; both depict a nude woman in the foreground with a train in the distance. In Daybreak Express, however, the woman lies on a bed in a house, while in Moonlight Express, the figure reclines in a lush forest setting.Over and over again in his work, Bearden turned to a complex set of symbols. They included masks, large hands, trains, suns and moons, “conjur” or medicine women, music and musicians, and animals of all kinds. Moonlight Express features several of these motifs. At left, the artist’s iconic train carried African Americans from their native South to new lives in the North, and sometimes back south again. In a dark forest, white birds spread their wings, which glow in the light of a full moon. And, in the lower left, Bearden has included the figure of a woman. Her nudity and her presence in the forest mark her clearly as a conjur woman, a kind of voodoo priestess who lends a note of mystery to the scene.
Bearden exhibited the Profile/Part I, The Twenties: Mecklenburg County series at Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery in New York in 1978. Working in collaboration with the writer Albert Murray, Bearden composed captions for each collage and wrote them directly on the wall to the right of the piece. For Moonlight Express, he wrote, “Sometimes at night I used to dream of being the one who was running the train.” For the related collage Daybreak Express, he wrote, “You could tell not only what train it was but also who the engineer was by the sound of the whistle.” As art historian Stephanie Heydt notes, “The critic for Arts Magazine … felt the ‘short, rhythmic texts’ spun a ‘continuous thread’ to ‘incidents and persons from the artist’s past.’” [1]
Bearden’s Profile series was critically well-received. A review in the New York Amsterdam News called it the “finest Mr. Bearden has done to date,” while Hilton Kramer in the New York Times deemed the work the “most personal and most ‘literary’ he has given us yet.” [2] The success of the series led Bearden to create a Profile/Part II series in 1981, subtitled The Thirties. The second series recalled Bearden’s years in Manhattan and Harlem. It was also on view at Cordier & Ekstrom.
Moonlight Express was included in a 2019 exhibition at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta that reunited most of the two Profile series. Called Something Over Something Else: Romare Bearden’s Profile Series, the exhibition took its title from a 1977 New Yorker profile of Bearden by Calvin Tomkins. Tomkins based the article’s title on Bearden’s description of his collage process: “Putting Something Over Something Else.” In the article, Tomkins quoted Bearden as he recalled his first ventures into collage: “I really think that the art of painting is the art of putting something over something else, and in a way these new pictures of mine, while they used representational images, were more abstract than the work I’d been doing before.” [3] After years of experimenting with painting, Bearden produced his most innovative work when he arrived at collage. Moonlight Express shows him working at the height of his creative powers.
[1] Stephanie Mayer Heydt, “Self-Revealing: Autobiography, Narrative, and Bearden’s Profile Series,” in Something Over Something Else: Romare Bearden’s Profile Series, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, in association with University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2019, p. 26.
[2] Ibid., p. 24.
[3] Romare Bearden, quoted in Calvin Tomkins, “Profiles: Putting Something Over Something Else,” The New Yorker, November 28, 1977. Reproduced in Something Over Something Else: Romare Bearden’s Profile Series, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, in association with University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2019, p. 145.
Exhibition History2019 - 2020
Something Over Something Else: Romare Bearden’s Profile Series
High Museum of Art, Atlanta (9/14/2019 - 2/2/2020)
Cincinnati Art Msuem (2/28/2020 - 6/21/2020)
2022
Still I Rise: The Black Experince at Reynolda
Reynolda House Museum of American Art
Published ReferencesCalvin Tomkins, “Profiles: Putting Something Over Something Else,” The New Yorker, November 28, 1977.
Stephanie Mayer Heydt, “Self-Revealing: Autobiography, Narrative, and Bearden’s Profile Series,” in Something Over Something Else: Romare Bearden’s Profile Series, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, in association with University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2019, p. 26.
Status
Not on view