NEW YORK, NY.- Romare Bearden’s vibrant mural-size tableau The Block (1971) and related sketches and photographs will be featured at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning January 15, 2010, in a small installation of works from the collection. “The Block”, an ambitious 18-foot-long collage, celebrates the Harlem neighborhood in New York City that nurtured and inspired so much of the artist’s life and work. Romare Bearden (1911–1988) is best known for the colorful cut-paper collages that he began making in the 1960s. Elaborate works such as “The Block” (1971) elevated this genre to a major art form through its unusual materials,