Richard Yarde: Savoy

Author: Michael S. Harper, Sally Yard
Publisher: The Mount Holyoke College Art Museum
Year: 1982
Pages: 32
ISBN: 82-81299

Richard Yarde is one of America's great watercolorists. He has earned wide critical acclaim for his bold use of brilliant, vibrant colors and powerful imagery drawn from the black experience.

Yarde’s Savoy series came into being in March of 1982 with his exhibition Savoy at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum. The Savoy Ballroom was the premier dancing venue for Black Americans from its opening in 1926 to its closing in 1958. Yarde painstakingly recreated the style and feeling of the storied ballroom. The show toured the country including the Studio Museum in Harlem just 15 blocks from the original ballroom.