Romare Bearden works as cartoonist and develops early painting style

Romare Bearden, who had worked as a political cartoonist for the Baltimore Afro-American and studied at the Art Students League, served in the U.S. Army from 1944-1945 while continuing to develop his visual practice. His 1940s figurative oil paintings drew on Cubist influences; his later collage work in the 1960s would make him one of the defining American artists of the twentieth century, but his wartime training laid essential groundwork.