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	Romare Bearden U.S., 1914-1988 At Five in the Afternoon, 1946 Oil on board 30 x 38 in. State Department Collection, Purchase, War Assets Administration, 1948

Romare Bearden was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1912. He left with his family at an early age and was raised in New York. His parents were friends of many key figures involved in the Harlem Renaissance, so he was surrounded by artists, poets, and musicians as a youth.

Bearden's inspiration for At Five in the Afternoon was the dramatic poem Lament for a Bullfighter by Spanish poet Frederico Garcia Lorca. For most of us, 5:00 in the afternoon signifies the end of a working day; but Romare Bearden chose the time as the climax of a bullfight in his painting. The figure of the bullfighter has merged with that of the bull so that it is difficult to see where one begins and the other ends. In addition to this painting, Bearden illustrated the poem with many other drawings and paintings.

Bearden chose a style similar to "Synthetic Cubism," which was invented by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso more than 40 years before At Five in the Afternoon was painted. We would probably call it "collage" today — from a French word meaning "to glue." Braque and Picasso were interested in showing many different sides of an object or figure at once. Although Romare Bearden used paint instead of gluing paper to the canvas, his solid shapes appear to have been cut out of construction paper. Bearden chose bright colors to convey the drama and intensity of the moment.