Sacrifice depicts four abstract figures in a fragmented composition. The central figure holds a knife at the throat of the character at the far right. Several art historical sources influenced Bearden’s image, including the Italian Baroque artist Caravaggio’s painting The Sacrifice of Isaac (1603) and Pablo Picasso’s Cubist masterwork Guernica (1937, Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid), a response to the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War.

For decades, Bearden was intermittently employed as a caseworker for the New York City Department of Social Services, a job that gave him insight into the struggles of the poor and disenfranchised. Sacrifice perhaps represents African Americans’ struggles with segregation, discrimination, and racial violence. In its collapse of space, overlapping forms, and blocks of bold color and pattern, the painting anticipated the collages for which the artist is best known today.