Edward C. Bearden, New Mexico Rainstorm, 1949

In this lithograph Edward Bearden depicts the drama and contrasts of a New Mexico rainstorm. A cluster of cumulus clouds gather during a late summer afternoon highlighted with dark and light tones. Cloud shadows and highlighted foliage play off the hills and the plains, foreseeing the rapid changes in weather conditions during New Mexico’s monsoon season.

Early in 1932 the work of a group of artists, none of them yet 30 years old, made up an exhibition at the Fair Park Dallas Public Art Museum, titled ‘Nine Young Dallas Artists.’ A review of this show in New York’s Art Digest called attention to the vitality and verve of the Dallas art scene and fixed the number as an identifying point of departure for a whole community of artists who had gathered—and were gathering—then to work in Dallas. . .  —Patsy Swank

Ed Bearden was described as a protégé of Jerry Bywaters, one of the founding members of the “Dallas Nine,” and would later join the group. Bearden was born in Dallas, then lived in St. Louis for several years, where he studied in a children’s program at the City Art Museum. He then attended high school in Dallas and completed a bachelor’s degree in art at Southern Methodist University (1941), where he studied with Jerry Bywaters and Elizabeth Walmsley.

Bearden and Bywaters worked together on a WPA mural for the Trinity, Texas, Post Office, inspired by the lumber manufacturing process in their visit to the Longleaf Pine Company in East Texas. When Bywaters became director of the Dallas Museum of Art in 1943, Bearden joined him as Assistant Director for ten years. In 1948 Bearden joined the art faculty at Southern Methodist University where he taught four years, and designed theater sets.

The ’50s scourge was part of the reason for the birth of The Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts, from its inception on Ed and Frances Bearden’s back porch to broad popular and powerful individual support and the short but great years of Douglas MacAgy’s directorship. Without the early foundation of the Dallas Nine and their circle, the DMA constituency would have been less ready to accept and appreciate the superb contemporary collection that came to it from the Museum for Contemporary Arts when the two organizations were merged.  —Patsy Swank

The 1950s continued to be an exciting time for Bearden as he was commissioned by the movie director George Stevens to draw storyboards for Giant, which was filmed in Marfa, Texas. His character sketches were used in the casting. All the while, Bearden pursued his fine art practice, painting, printmaking, and exhibiting his artwork widely. The artist found his way to New Mexico and returned often, to paint and draw its expansive and unique landscapes.

Ed Bearden’s artworks are held in a number of important collections, including the Dallas Museum of Art, the Jefferson Historical Museum, and the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum.

Refs.: Powers & Powers, Texas Painters, Sculptors and Graphic Artists; Swank, “Art: A Picture of the Dallas Nine,” D Magazine, Nov. 1996.