About Beauford Delaney 2/16/10 About Beauford Delaney 2/16/10

Presenting Beauford

I am pleased to announce that I will speak at two events in Paris during Black History Month in honor of Beauford and in support of the gravesite project.

The name of my presentation is “Beauford Delaney: From Paris to Beyond.” In it, I will give a brief overview of Beauford’s life, explain how I became involved in the story of his gravesite, and then present images and commentary on his life in Paris. I will discuss the evolution of Beauford’s artistic style, present information on his solo expositions in Paris and retrospectives mounted on his work after his death, and finally, speak about his final resting place and the fundraising effort that we have launched to place a permanent marker at his grave.

On Saturday 27 February 2010, I will speak at an event called “African-American Expatriates – Yesterday and Today” that is organized by the American Embassy. The address is:

New York University in France
56, rue de Passy
Paris 75016
Metro : La Muette or Passy RER : Boulainvilliers

The presentation will begin at 2:00 p.m. It will last approximately one hour, with up to a half-hour designated for questions and answers afterward. Following my presentation, there will be a talk on the 1921 race riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma at 4:00 p.m., and a poetry reading at 6:00 p.m. Wine and cheese will be served at around 7 p.m. Admission is free.

On Sunday 28 February 2010, I will speak at Patricia Laplante-Collins’ Paris Soirées. The informal evening will begin with snacks and wine, followed by a round-robin introduction of attendees. I will give the presentation, followed by questions and answers. A buffet dinner will then be served. If you wish to attend, please send e-mail to Patricia to reserve. Her soirées are always informative and entertaining! Time: 7:00 p.m. Entry fee: 20 euros.

Monique (left) and Patricia (right)

I hope that those of you who live in Paris or who will be passing through on the last weekend of February will join me for one of these events!

About Beauford Delaney 2/10/10 About Beauford Delaney 2/10/10

Beauford's Eternal Home - Thiais Cemetery

The Parisian Cemetery of Thiais is located in the town of Thiais, which is 10.3 km (6.4 miles) south of Paris. It is the second largest cemetery in the Paris area, and is the most recently opened (1929). Easily reached by public transportation (metro, RER, bus), it has been Beauford’s resting place since 1979.

Avenue de l'Ouest

Thiais Cemetery

The cemetery extends over 103.36 hectares (225.4 acres) and contains 130 divisions. Its entrance, created by architect Charles Halley, is described on the Paris.fr Web site as majestic. However, I find it to be heavy, rigid, and uninviting. Among the more well-known people buried there are the Austrian writer Joseph Roth, prince Serge Orloff (descendant of Catherine the Great of Russia), and Léon Sedov, son of Léon Trotsky.

Entry to Thiais Cemetery

Thiais has a reputation for being a burial ground for the poor. There is an area called the Garden of Fraternity where persons who have few to no resources are buried. These “common terrains” contain individual, prefabricated graves in which persons may be buried for a single, non-renewable period of five years. Though generally used for poor or unidentified persons, anyone may be buried in this section of the cemetery – regardless of financial means – upon request. Thiais’ common terrains are located in Divisions 48-50 and 56-58.

Despite its reputation as a “poor man’s cemetery,” several divisions at Thiais contain elaborate graves.

Beauford’s grave is located in Division 86. Overgrown with weeds when I visited it in July 2009, it was being mown when I returned in September to pay the outstanding fees for Beauford’s concession. Beauford has a “temporary” concession, which is renewable every ten years.

Signpost for Division 86

For a detailed article on the cemetery (in French), visit http://www.landrucimetieres.fr/spip/spip.php?article1858. Even if you cannot read French, go to the site to see numerous photos that will give you a good idea of how vast the cemetery is, and show the diverse faiths (Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist) of the persons buried there. These photos also provide an excellent indication of what French grave sites look like.

Reminder:

Les Amis de Beauford Delaney is seeking to raise $8500 to cover the cost of the construction and installation of Beauford's tombstone, one year of maintenance of the gravesite, concession fees for the ten year period beginning in 2011, and miscellaneous expenses such as banking fees and postage. Our goal is to have raised this entire amount by 26 March 2010, the 31st anniversary of Beauford’s death.

Your contribution of $100 or 100€ to our fund will help us to place a fitting monument at Beauford’s grave. Please send your donation today.

To make a secure contribution online now, click on the "Donate" button in the right margin beneath the photo of Beauford's grave.

Checks (in US dollars) should be made payable to Les Amis de Beauford Delaney and sent to the following address today:

Monique Y. Wells
Les Amis de Beauford Delaney
11503 Sandhurst
Houston, TX 77048
U.S.A.

As president of Les Amis de Beauford Delaney, I would like to personally express my gratitude for your generosity and your support of this important cause! We will inform all contributors of our success once we have reached our goal.

With sincere thanks,
Monique Y. Wells
President, Les Amis de Beauford Delaney

P.S. If you are unable to contribute $100 or 100€, but would still like to support us, please consider donating $50, 50€, $25, or 25€ to our cause. If you would like to contribute more than $100 or 100€, please feel free to do so!

About Beauford Delaney 2/5/10 About Beauford Delaney 2/5/10

Beauford's Tombstone: Call for Donations

We have chosen a simple, yet elegant monument to place at Beauford’s gravesite. It consists of a Tarn granite slab that will cover the full length of the tomb. There will be no additional headstone for the monument because of economic concerns. (A full-length slab with a headstone is the norm in France, whereas in the U.S., we generally only erect a headstone.) A photograph of Beauford will be permanently fixed to the surface of the slab, and beneath it, an inscription in black letters will be carved into the stone.

The gravestone will rest on a rectangular, cement base, which will in turn rest upon a reinforcing structure that will be placed underground to prevent the tomb from collapsing.

Model of the tombstone for Beauford's grave

Beauford was a man of simple tastes, and we believe that the pure lines of this monument would have pleased him.

Our association is seeking to raise $8500 to cover the cost of the construction and installation of the tombstone, one year of maintenance of the gravesite, concession fees for the ten year period beginning in 2011, and miscellaneous expenses such as banking fees and postage. Our goal is to have raised this entire amount by 26 March 2010, the 31st anniversary of Beauford’s death.

About Beauford Delaney 1/27/10 About Beauford Delaney 1/27/10

Beauford and the Briet Brothers

Philippe Briet (1959-1997) was a French gallery owner and publisher who was passionate about the work of Beauford Delaney. His brother Sylvain shares that passion to this day. Sylvain Briet graciously consented to speak with me about the work that he and Philippe undertook during the late 1980s through the mid 1990s to lift Beauford’s works from obscurity and promote them. (He also contributed the photos in this posting; they are not to be reproduced elsewhere or otherwise utilized without his express permission.)

Philippe Briet’s passion for art was born when he was a high school student in Caen, Normandy in 1977. He organized several exhibitions of modern and contemporary art at his school, including the works of great painters such as Chagall and Sonia Delaunay. He befriended Sonia Delaunay in Paris in 1978, and she generously created a poster for one of his shows. At his tender age, he would meet artistic greats such as Salvador Dalí, Marc Chagall, and Andy Warhol. By the time he was 22 years old, Philippe was responsible for the contemporary art program for the City of Caen, and organized a traveling exhibit of contemporary French art in Africa for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He would later befriend painter Jean-Michel Basquiat in New York, and earnestly support this artist when his work was not yet popular.

Philippe Briet (right) and his art teacher at the Sonia Delaunay exposition (1978)

Philippe Briet (left) and Sonia Delaunay (1979)

Briet moved to New York in 1985, and opened the Philippe Briet Gallery in SoHo, Manhattan in 1987. One Sunday in April 1988, Philippe took Sylvain and some friends to the Studio Museum in Harlem, and was surprised to find it closed. The gallery’s bookstore was open, however, and inside, Philippe’s attention was drawn to a tall pile of books with an orange cover bearing a black and white photo of a man whose face he had not seen before. This was a stack of catalogs for the Studio Museum in Harlem’s retrospective of Beauford’s works, organized by Richard A. Long in 1978. Beauford’s photo was on the cover. The catalogs were on sale for $1.00.

Cover of the Studio Museum in Harlem catalog (1978)

Courtesy of Sylvain Briet

Sylvain indicated that Philippe was entranced by the depth of Beauford’s expression on the cover, and the images of the works that he saw in that catalog. Feeling the importance of that moment, he bought a copy for each of his friends. He later contacted Mary Schmidt Campbell, New York City Commissioner of Cultural Affairs and former Executive Director of the Studio Museum, to learn more about this amazing painter, and discovered that Beauford was deceased. Campbell would introduce Philippe to several persons who knew Beauford personally, including Solange du Closel, Richard Long, and Al Hirschfeld. Captivated and impassioned by Beauford’s work, Philippe moved heaven and earth to organize and present the first Beauford Delaney exposition since 1978. Entitled Beauford Delaney [1901-1979]: From Tennessee to Paris, this show was presented in November 1988. It included roughly ten works from New York and Paris, including a portrait of Solange du Closel and a magnificant painting of Washington Square in New York.

Interior of the invitation card for the 1988 exposition

Courtesy of Sylvain Briet

According to Sylvain, Philippe felt that people were much more cognizant and appreciative of Beauford’s personality than they were of his art. Philippe embarked on a treasure hunt of sorts, finding some of Beauford’s paintings in the homes of persons who had purchased them long ago and, not realizing their artistic value, stored them in basements or closets. He recovered several that were in less-than-optimal condition, paid fair market value for them, and had these paintings restored. His mission was to acquire Beauford’s works to showcase, not to sell, and to convince museums and the art press of the importance of these works.

Sylvain joined his brother in New York, and together the two men pursued the work of operating a new SoHo gallery, which opened on Broadway in October 1989 with Don’t You Know by Now, a show curated by jazz musician Ornette Coleman. Philippe and Sylvain would mount two retrospectives of Beauford’s work: A Retrospective: Fifty Years of Light (1991) and Beauford Delaney: The New York Years (1994). Forty-seven paintings were hung at the latter exhibit, which was a remarkable feat given that only œuvre created between 1929 and 1953 were shown. Most of these works were being shown for the first time in over fifty years.

A Retrospective: Fifty Years of Light (1991)

Philippe Briet (right) and Richard Long at the 1991 exposition

None of the works shown at either of these exhibits were for sale. The shows drew the attention of major newspapers and magazines (The New York Times, The New Yorker, Village Voice, Art in America, New York Magazine, Amsterdam News, Arts Magazine...), as art critics noted the quality of the works and posed the question "Why did Beauford Delaney disappear from American art history?" Shortly after this exposition ended, the Briet brothers closed the gallery and began to publish books about artists and their work.

Beauford Delaney: The New York Years (1994)

Haywood "Bill" Rivers at the 1994 exposition

Philippe (left) shows Brice Porter a self-portrait of Beauford at the 1994 exposition

In 1995, Philippe Briet collaborated with American poet Cid Corman and American curator and publisher Richard Milazzo to create a book of poetry dedicated to Beauford. Called Tributary (Edgewise Press, 1999), it contains fifty poems and five color reproductions of Beauford’s paintings. In 1995, Philippe also wrote a draft essay about Beauford that he did not have the opportunity to finalize. It would eventually be published in the catalog for the 2007 art exhibit entitled Philippe Briet: Art. Art. Art., which was organized by Sylvain for the Région Basse-Normandie in honor of the 10th anniversary of his brother’s death and presented at the Abbaye-aux-Dames in Caen, France.

Cover of the Philippe Briet: Art. Art. Art. catalog

Courtesy of Sylvain Briet

Sylvain Briet has followed the status of Beauford’s gravesite since 2002. He continues to hope that Beauford’s remains will someday be transferred to Montparnasse Cemetery, the burial ground closest to where Beauford spent most of his life in Paris, and where James Baldwin wanted to see his friend buried. He is following the progress of Les Amis de Beauford Delaney regarding the placement of a permanent marker at the tomb at Thiais Cemetery.

About Beauford Delaney 1/13/10 About Beauford Delaney 1/13/10

Beauford at Galerie Darthea Speyer

Darthea Speyer is an extraordinary woman whose passion and vision changed the landscape of Paris’ art scene. She worked as exhibit officer for the United States Information Services at the American Embassy and helped to found the American Cultural Center in the rue de Dragon. Subsequently, during the midst of the May 1968 riots, she established an art gallery in the heart of Saint-Germain des Prés. Her brother, A. James Speyer, designed the space, and brother and sister worked together to plan the expositions.

Galerie Darthea Speyer

Beauford and Darthea Speyer met in the fall of 1956, when Speyer purchased a watercolor that Beauford painted during his summer in Ibiza that year. She would later organize a group exhibition that included Beauford’s works at the American Cultural Center in 1966, and host two solo exhibitions of his work at her gallery. She was a staunch supporter of Beauford during good times and bad, and often commissioned him to paint portraits of herself and her family to provide him with work. She was a member of the trustee panel that handled Beauford’s affairs during his last years, which were spent at Saint Anne’s Hospital.

Darthea

Beauford Delaney

Oil on canvas (1965)

Courtesy of Galerie Darthea Speyer

The 1973 solo exposition at the Speyer Gallery was quite successful and received positive reviews. Beauford’s portraits commanded the most attention. Among them were works depicting Jean Genet, Ahmed Bioud, and James Baldwin. Speyer also selected several abstract and semi-abstract paintings to exhibit, including many that featured African themes. The exposition ran from February 6 through March 2.

Invitation card for 1973 exhibit at Galerie Darthea Speyer

Courtesy of Galerie Darthea Speyer

Not much is written about the 1992 solo exposition at the Speyer Gallery. However, in the invitation card for the exhibit, Speyer tenderly eulogizes Beauford. She speaks of his coming almost each day to her office at the American Cultural Center, and then to the gallery. She states how he happily and quickly captured the images of her family and friends on canvas. She laments the shadow that descended upon his spirit and eventually led to his commitment at Saint Anne’s.

Invitation card for 1992 exhibit at Galerie Darthea Speyer

Courtesy of Galerie Darthea Speyer

Galerie Darthea Speyer permanently closed its doors at the end of 2009. It will donate its remaining works by Beauford to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.

Beauford and Darthea

Invitation card for 1973 exhibit at Galerie Darthea Speyer

Courtesy of Galerie Darthea Speyer

About Beauford Delaney 1/5/10 About Beauford Delaney 1/5/10

A Tribute to Beauford...in Gratitude

Richard Gibson was sixteen years old when he first met Beauford Delaney in Philadelphia. Their friendship continued until Delaney’s death in 1979. In the early 1950s, Gibson was stationed in the Army in Germany and would visit Beauford in Paris during his furloughs. When he was discharged, he moved to Paris and stayed for a time in the same hotel that Beauford occupied. At that time, Beauford introduced Gibson to Ed Clark, the then-struggling and now renowned artist whom Gibson still considers a friend. Beauford attended Gibson’s wedding at the town hall of Paris’ 6th arrondissement. To this day, Gibson speaks of Beauford with a mixture of affection and pride.

Gibson was one of many whose portrait Beauford painted. He vividly recalls Beauford's hotel room on the top floor of what was then called the Hotel des Ecoles on rue Delambre in the Montparnasse district in Paris. Beauford had transformed the room into a studio by draping old white sheets over the dark furniture to provide the light he loved.

Portrait of Richard Gibson

Beauford Delaney

Oil on canvas (1955)

Dolan/Maxwell Gallery

The following is Richard Gibson’s tribute to Beauford:

Beauford Delaney was a master and friend who taught me how to see, hear, and understand a lot about the arts, from jazz to Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson and the spirituals to the European and American classics, from the glories of African sculpture to Mondrian (who also loved jazz). Walking through any museum with Beauford, whether in New York or Paris, was a guided tour in art history and a revelation of the profound meaning of what we saw. He taught about art just as he could teach you to hear and enjoy musicians as diverse as Schoenberg and Fats Waller.

I came to know Beauford after reading Henry Miller’s “The Amazing and Invariable Beauford Delaney” in 1947. I had indeed been amazed and dashed off a hasty letter of admiration to Beauford at 131 Greene Street—the address Miller repeated several times in that essay—in hope that it might guide curious dealers and potential patrons to his ramshackle loft studio on the edge of Greenwich Village.

Beauford replied and an exchange of letters followed, until one day not long after, Beauford rang the door of the West Philadelphia home where my grandmother and I lived. My grandmother was quite surprised and warily let him in. Beauford seemed even more surprised to discover that I was a 16-year boy studying at Central High School. Beauford had come to Philadelphia because he had been named “Artist of the Year” at the Pyramid Club, an association of black, primarily middle class, people. They gathered together not because they were snobs, but because many local restaurants would not serve African Americans in what was mistakenly taken to be a “liberal” Northern Quaker city.

Beauford was not shocked, and certainly did not inform my grandmother, when I in turn arrived one day a few months later at his door on Greene Street with my first serious girlfriend who happened to be a Quaker English teacher 20 years older than I. “Now you really are a man,” he quietly commented, smiling.

Proud of his African origins and well aware of the inhumanity of slavery in the transatlantic world, Beauford could quote with approval both W. E. B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey. Yet he was not a racist or a black nationalist, and included white and black men and women among his close friends all his life.

Just as he was pleased for me and my girlfriend that day on Greene Street, he was also pleased (though fearful of dire consequences) when another slightly older friend, James Baldwin, revealed without apology his sexual orientation. Beauford did many portraits of Jimmy, including his great nude portrait of 1941 of Baldwin entitled Dark Rapture. Some might now call this painting “afromodernist,” but Beauford’s style evolved over the years to his final abstractions based on the admixture of Paris’ greyish light and spots of color.

Beauford's favourite author was Proust, whom he read and reread in the old Scott Moncrief translation of Remembrance of Things Past, followed by Andre Gide, whose journals he loved for their frankness.

The mystery of Beauford’s slow decline in Paris, which had become his home (though he never denied his origins in the American South), remains for me a sad and tragic mystery that has not been explained to my satisfaction. At least he was always treated as a human being in Paris, even in the hospital where he died, and where he rejected the gift of pastels the nurses offered him in hope they might restore the great creativity they had heard of from his visiting friends. “No,” he said firmly, pushing them away, “I am still owed money for my work.”

Indeed, I remain in Beauford’s debt for the paintings he gave to me, and all that I learned from him about art and life.

– Richard Gibson

About Beauford Delaney 12/30/09 About Beauford Delaney 12/30/09

Beauford's Birthday Tribute

Beauford Delaney

I did not know Beauford Delaney personally. But in reading about him and talking with people who knew him – in particular, Richard Gibson and Ed Clark – I have been repeatedly impressed by the glowing statements and vivid exclamations made about him. In Leeming’s biography, Beauford is described by friends as a “big Buddha” and “a veritable angel of a man.” James Baldwin described him as a “cross between Brer Rabbit and Saint Francis of Assisi,” and a “spiritual father.” In honor of the 108th anniversary of Beauford’s birth, and as a tribute to his warm and gentle spirit, here are several quotes written by people who knew and loved him. Happy Birthday, Beauford!

As for Beauford Delaney, it escapes the general notice that he has comprehended, more totally perhaps than anyone…the tremendous reality of the light which comes out of darkness. If we stand before a Delaney canvas, we are standing, my friends, in the light: and, if in this light, which is both loving and merciless, we are able to confront ourselves, we are liberated into the perception that darkness is not the absence of light, but the negation of it.
– James Baldwin

Portrait of James Baldwin

Beauford Delaney

Oil on canvas (1945)

Philadelphia Museum of Art

I think of Beauford Delaney first as a wonderful, amazing and unique human being, a near saint or better than saint, an individual who has known nothing but adversity, met it squarely, and rendered it null, not through success but by sheer pluck and indomitable fortitude…He has lived his whole life with but one thought in mind – to paint…Poor though he has been, he has never given the impression of being miserable. He has always given more than he received – that is to say, himself.
– Henry Miller

Perhaps the most outstanding characteristic of Beauford Delaney as a man is his generosity of spirit. It is practically impossible for someone to do something so mean that Beauford is not ready to forgive it and understand.
– James Jones

For many years, the sparkle of his gaze shone around him and attracted a crowd of friends, fascinated by this strong, if silent, presence. It was not his discourse that captivated, but a light that emanated from him and permeated everyone. (Translated from French)
– Darthea Speyer

In honor of the centennial of Beauford’s birth in 2001, the Palmer Museum of Art organized an exposition of selected works by Beauford and his dear friend Larry Calcagno. It was shown at five institutions around the U.S. from February 2001 to November 2002.

Catalog cover for An Artistic Friendship

He is about the only person in my life, who gave me generously of deep insights into life – without demanding tribute. A true artist – beyond this world!
– Larry Calcagno

Two of Beauford’s friends sent tributes specifically for this blog posting. Here is an excerpt from what Richard Gibson has to say (his full tribute will be published in a subsequent posting):

Beauford Delaney was a master and friend who taught me how to see, hear and understand a lot that I learned about the arts, from jazz to Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson and the spirituals to the European and American classics, from the glories of African sculpture to Mondrian…

Finally, Richard Long has contributed the last lines of his poem “Ascending, for Beauford” (1975):

All gathers, comes to growth, fuses.

The yellow, the green. The white paper
catching, refracting the sunlight.

The palette fills with light and love.

The spirit lifts, rises.

The world floats, ascends.

Ascension.

Ascending.

About Beauford Delaney 12/24/09 About Beauford Delaney 12/24/09

Christmas with Beauford

Amazing Grace - A Life of Beauford Delaney (by David Leeming, Oxford University Press, 1998) is the only biography of Beauford Delaney written to date. Because Christmas is approaching, I consulted this volume in search of information about how Beauford celebrated the holidays in France. I found several anecdotes, many of which are tinged with melancholy because of Beauford's worsening mental illness. Below are two that bring to light Beauford's capacity to appreciate life under arduous conditions, and his ability to create art in the midst of them.

Beauford spent Christmas Eve of 1959 with James Baldwin and Beat poet Dixie Nimmo. Nimmo cooked an entire chicken on a single burner in his unheated apartment near the Seine (perhaps at “The Beat Hotel” on rue Git-le-Coeur), and all three men “drank quantities of red wine.” Leeming indicates that Beauford considered the meal the best that he had ever eaten and the evening as the happiest that he could remember.

In the days leading up to the Christmas of 1961, Beauford lived at the home of French art collector Solange du Closel and her husband. Du Closel had been a supporter of Beauford since 1958, when she visited his studio in Clamart and bought several of his paintings. With Beauford’s approval, she arranged for a psychiatrist to evaluate Beauford’s mental state, and followed the doctor’s recommendation to place Beauford at the Nogent-sur-Marne Maison de Santé for a rest cure during the Christmas holidays. Prior to his departure, she encouraged Beauford to paint Christmas scenes. Beauford obliged her, creating several works.

Nativity Scene
Beauford Delaney
Oil on canvas (1961)

He gave a painting to Madame du Closel, which featured a simple nativity scene on a bright yellow background that would become a hallmark of several of Beauford’s later works. Beauford would continue to give the du Closels paintings at Christmas time.

Les Amis de Beauford Delaney wishes you the best for the holiday season!

About Beauford Delaney 12/19/09 About Beauford Delaney 12/19/09

Journal Officiel Announcement!

The announcement for Les Amis de Beauford Delaney has been published in the Journal Officiel – two weeks earlier than anticipated! It appeared in the December 12, 2009 issue and arrived in my mailbox a week later. I have never seen anything administrative be accomplished so quickly in this country.

Now that the association has the right to enter into contracts and other legally binding activities, the next step is to open a French bank account. Because the holidays are approaching, I anticipate that this will take a little time. But maybe, “lightning will strike twice,” and I’ll be surprised once again!

A suivre… (Stay tuned…)

About Beauford Delaney 12/16/09 About Beauford Delaney 12/16/09

Our Association - Les Amis de Beauford Delaney

In France, it is surprisingly easy to create a non-profit association. Basically, all you need are two people and the desire to create an organization to achieve some goal. Neither age nor nationality is important. You write the statutes for your association, submit them to the local authorities along with a couple of additional supporting documents, and await the arrival of a confirmation notice from the authorities indicating that your organization has been created. This generally occurs within five days of your submission, provided that there is no problem with the paperwork that you submit.

Approximately a month after receiving the confirmation notice, an announcement will appear in a French government publication called Journal Officiel. You must pay the journal to cover its costs for printing this announcement, but once it has been published, your organization can engage in legally binding operations. It is also eligible to receive subsidies from government and other institutions.

I undertook the task of creating our organization a few weeks ago and the process has gone very smoothly thus far. I took care to solicit advice about how to construct the statutes of the association so that they would be broad enough to allow us to engage in a wide variety of activities in pursuit of our goal. There were no questions about our documentation when I went to the Prefecture de Police (the local authority responsible for managing applications for non-profit associations), and the confirmation letter was signed three days later. It arrived within the expected time frame. We still have a couple of weeks to wait before the appearance of the announcement in Journal Officiel.

About Beauford Delaney 12/15/09 About Beauford Delaney 12/15/09

How I became involved in the affair regarding Beauford’s gravesite

Prior to the summer of 2009, I would not have considered myself a “Friend of Beauford Delaney.” I knew of Beauford’s life and his paintings because of my work: I write personalized itineraries for Anglophone travelers to Paris and travel articles about Paris. Through my research on 20th-century African-American Paris expatriates, I knew that he was well respected, and much loved. At the time that I discovered the situation regarding his gravesite, I was researching an article on African-American gravesites in and around Paris. But I was not a personal friend, or even an acquaintance.

I knew that Beauford was buried near Paris, but could not remember where. I contacted a colleague whom I believed could give me the information that I sought, but he could not remember the name of the cemetery either. He contacted his colleagues and found that Beauford was interred at Thiais. But his colleagues expressed concern that Beauford’s remains would be exhumed this year, if they had not been already.

I called the cemetery to inquire about the status of the grave. Having been assured that Beauford’s remains were still safely in the ground, I went to the cemetery to see the gravesite for myself. Armed with the coordinates of the tomb (Division 86, Line 2, Tomb 45), I found the division easily enough. However, I was unable to accurately determine the line and space for the grave because of the absence of any sign indicating line numbers or the direction that one needed to walk to begin counting the individual tombs. In addition, most of the land in this division appeared “unoccupied”—either the graves were unmarked or the spaces were actually empty. At this time, I did not know that Beauford’s grave was unmarked.

Beauford's unmarked grave

Finally, two guards were able to help me. They indicated that one begins counting the lines of a division at the lower left corner, and that one counts the tombs from left to right. They both walked the length of Line 2 and arrived at the same space for Tomb 45. The grave was unmarked, and was only distinguishable by a mound of dirt overgrown by weeds. A small, ceramic flower arrangement sat at the head of the plot, but there was no way to know whether this had been placed there by mistake.

I would later learn that the arrangement had been placed at the grave by Sue Canterbury, the curator at the Minneapolis Institute of Art who organized an exposition of Beauford’s work entitled Delaney: From New York to Paris. She is one of the persons committed to keeping Beauford’s grave intact.

Remembering the stories that I heard personal friends of Beauford tell about him, and having recently read the biography of Beauford by David Leeming, I felt that the least I could do for this exceptional man was to help keep his remains interred as long as possible. Friends gathered the necessary funds, sent them to me, and I submitted them to the cemetery. Beauford’s concession is now paid in full through 2011.

About Beauford Delaney 12/14/09 About Beauford Delaney 12/14/09

Welcome!

Welcome to the blog site for Les Amis de Beauford Delaney (English translation: Friends of Beauford Delaney)! We are a small, French non-profit organization (Association 1901), that was created in November 2009. The following are the goals of our organization:

1) Placement and maintenance of a tombstone for the grave of painter Beauford Delaney, who is buried at the Parisian Cemetery of Thiais.

2) Payment of the renewal fees for his grave.

3) Organization of commemorative or educational events in his honor.

4) Inform the press and the media of his life and accomplishments.You may ask yourself why we have undertaken this project. The answer is simple: Beauford Delaney was an extraordinary man and an exceptional artist, and we want to do everything that we can to preserve his memory.

Photo of a photo of Beauford
© Discover Paris!

Beauford (as he preferred to be called) died intestate in Paris, France in 1979. He was buried in an unmarked grave in a cemetery outside Paris. Per French custom, fees for gravesites must be paid at regular intervals—or the remains of the deceased will be exhumed and either placed in a common grave, or cremated and scattered in a garden. Several friends of Beauford discovered that his fees (concession in French) had not been paid since 1981. We recently collected the money to settle the outstanding debt for his gravesite so that he is assured of resting in peace until 2011. We now want to place a permanent marker at his grave, as well as provide a means for continued payment of the gravesite fees and the maintenance of the marker.

For more details, please refer to the following articles:

A Final Resting Place for Beauford Delaney

Burial site of Knoxville's Beauford Delaney remains undisturbed thanks to friends, admirers

We have already obtained permission from the Paris Cemetery Service to place the monument, and we have selected a simple, yet dignified tombstone to honor Beauford’s memory. But we have no funds to cover the cost of the construction of the slab. We have therefore created Les Amis de Beauford Delaney to provide a legal means of collecting the money to proceed.

Please stay tuned for further blog entries as we keep you informed of our efforts. If you have questions, or wish to contribute, please do not hesitate to contact us at amisdebeauford@yahoo.com.