Romare Bearden in Black-and-White is the catalogue of a show mounted by the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1997.  The show traveled for two years and made it as close to Pittsburgh as the Trout Gallery at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA.  The book contains an essay by each of the authors along with the transcript of a conversation between Ms. Gelburd and Albert Murray.  Each of the essays combines a social-historical context for understanding the milieu out which the work emerged with an art-historical appreciation of the nature and degree of Bearden’s achievement, with Ms. Gelburd’s concentrating on the former while Ms. Golden’s is weighted toward the latter.  The often fascinating conversation with Mr. Murray focuses on his theories relating to the centrality of ritual to art, and his inferences of Bearden’s own thoughts on ritual arising both from his friendship with Bearden and from the works themselves.  It was, in fact, Murray who provided the phrase, "The Prevalence of Ritual," that has become closely associated with Bearden's work. Please click on the image at left to read our full length review.