Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0810945894, Hardcover)

For the first time, children have their own book where they can discover the life and work of Romare Bearden, one of the most important American artists of the 20th century. Award-winning author Jan Greenberg tells the intriguing story of the collagist who made "visual jazz."

This lavishly illustrated picture-book biography, in the tradition of Abrams' The Yellow House and Degas and the Dance, reveals how Bearden blended fabric, photographs, colored papers, and many other materials to expand the possibilities of collage and capture the spirit of the artistic experience. Quilting bees, cotton pickers, revival meetings, city streets, jazz musicians-all are celebrated in these kinetic, visionary collages. Bearden's art, though rooted in African American culture, speaks to everyone as an affirmation of life and humanity.