Romare Bearden
1911-1988
The Family
1975
etching, aquatint and photoengraving (alternative version, sepia ink)
19-1/2 x 26 inches
signed, inscribed, "To - Bob", and numbered, 5/12 in pencil (the original version is an edition of 175)
Inscription presumably refers to Bob Blackburn.

In 1964, Bearden made a collage and a "photo projection" titled Mysteries. In 1973, Alex Rosenberg of Transworld Art Corp., approached Bearden about the possibility of experimenting with the image through print production techniques. The result, The Train, was completed in 1975.

"The Train was in production at approximately the same time as The Family, which was included in the three-volume portfolio "An American Portrait", 1776-1976, containing works by thirty-three artists and published by Transworld Art to commemorate the American bicentennial. The process for producing the plates for The Family, as with The Train, began with the making of multiple transparencies (Kodaliths) of the collage, photographed through various halftone screens to produce different patterns and textures, which Bearden then cut apart and re-collaged. The reconfigured transparency-collage was then rephotographed to make the Kodalith for the key plate. Proofs of the key plate were printed in both relief and intaglio, and supplementary plates were then made for added color. Caraccio recalls that for both The Family and The Train, sepia proofs were made to test the viscosity, "to determine where the rollers would hit." As Fine has pointed out, when comparing the proofs from the key plates to the final edition of The Family, it is clear that Bearden continued to rework the composition in the proofing stages—for example, he added drawing to the children's faces. Caraccio noted that adjustments to the plate for the face of the smallest figure at the table had to be made because that part of the image wasn't printing clearly in initial proofs. The plate was thus physically ground out in that area, and the image was redrawn by Bearden so that it could be re-etched.

The Family, along with The Train and 12 Trains, represents quintessential Bearden printmaking—improvisation, variation within structure; collage practice customized for creating the matrix. Together these prints reveal the substance of Bearden's aesthetic methodology as described by Blackburn and recorded in the 1995 film, Romare Bearden: Visual Jazz: "I learned mostly with Romie the idea to feel very, very free. Don't fix your idea too much because if you fix your idea you've nowhere to expand to....He never had something that was so tight that he couldn't alter it."

From Process to Print, Graphic Works by Romare Bearden, Romare Bearden Foundation, Pomegranate Communications, 2009, pp. 16-17.