"When I first started trying to make pictures I was particularly interested in using art as an instrument of social change. As far as I was concerned at the time, which was in the mid 30s, aesthetic technique was simply the means that enabled the artist to communicate his message -- which as I saw it then was always essentially social if not political."
"Even though you go through these terrible experiences, you come out feeling good. That’s what the blues say, and that’s what I believe—life will prevail."
"Well, it's like jazz: you do this and then you improvise."
- On his technique
"I have chosen to paint the life of my people as I know and feel it - passionately and dispassionately." Bearden added, "It is important that the artist identify with the self-reliance, hope, and courage of the people around him, for an art must always go where energy is"
