Family

In his large-scale paper collage Family, which includes photographic imagery as well as hand-drawn passages and areas of solid color, Bearden imagines a family group that transcends both race and gender boundaries. Two women stand next to a table with a vessel and basin. One of the women, her hair in a bun, holds an infant in her arms while the other raises her hand over the child's head. The woman on the right has what appears to be a man's hand and white cuff, perhaps a reference to our expectations of a father figure in her place. In a further ambiguity, the left figure's raised hand is composed of both black paper and snippets from a photograph of caucasian fingers.