Mysteries II
- Artist: Romare Bearden
- Date: 1964
- Medium: Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper, mounted on fibreboard
- Dimensions: image: 1270 x 1578 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
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About this artwork
This is the “Mysteries II” by Romare Bearden, created in 1964. The work is a gelatin‑silver print on paper, mounted on fibreboard, and it feels like a visual puzzle. Bearden takes found photographs and slices them into fragments, re‑assembling them into a photomontage that reads like a collage of memories. The composition is a sharp social comment on race and civil rights, using the everyday faces of black Americans as a mirror of broader society. The texture and broken edges suggest the fragmented nature of identity during the turbulent 1960s, making the piece both a historical snapshot and a timeless exploration of community.
See it in person
Mysteries II is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
