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Chapter 5 - Seeing and Being, the Part and the Whole

The Influence of Romare Bearden on August Wilson

from Part I - Influences and Inspirations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2025

By
Jon Dietrick
Edited by
Khalid Y. Long  and
Isaiah Matthew Wooden
Khalid Y. Long
Affiliation:
Howard University, Washington DC
Isaiah Matthew Wooden
Affiliation:
Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania
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Summary

One critically overlooked aspect of August Wilson’s work is his repeated meditations on acts of perception. This chapter argues that it is precisely in this facet that an understanding of what the playwright learned from Romare Bearden – especially the artist’s collages of the 1960s – can prove most helpful in considering the cultural work Wilson’s monumental body of work does.

Keywords

August WilsonAmerican Century CycleFour BsRomare BeardenVisual ArtJoe Turner’s Come and GoneThe Piano Lesson
Type
Chapter
Information
August Wilson in Context , pp. 67 - 76
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

Further Reading

Harris, Trudier and Larson, Jennifer, eds., Reading Contemporary African American Drama: Fragments of History, Fragments of Self (New York: Peter Lang, 2007).Google Scholar
Nadel, Alan, ed., May All Your Fences Have Gates: Essays on the Drama of August Wilson (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1994).Google Scholar
O’Meally, Robert G., ed., The Romare Bearden Reader (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019).Google Scholar
Schwartzman, Myron, Romare Bearden: His Life and Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990).Google Scholar
Wilson, August, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (New York: Plume, 1988).Google Scholar
Wilson, August, The Piano Lesson (New York: Plume, 1990).Google Scholar

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