The twentieth-century collage artist Romare Bearden (1911-1988) believed that art had a eater function than just to be admired. To him, "Art celebrates a victory. In this book, respected scholar Myron Schwartzman (the pre-eminent Bearden authority) traces the long and varied life of this African-American artist, whose experiences were a catalyst to the themes he would explore in his collages. Memories of places -- his birthplace, Charlotte, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Harlem, Paris, and the Caribbean -- inspired Bearden's art.