Beauford and Countee Cullen
Beauford was strongly influenced by one of the leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance - Countee Cullen.
Countee Cullen
1941 Carl Van Vechten
Beauford was in his twenties when met Cullen. This was during his "Boston years." The two men were introduced by an affluent black couple, the Roscoe Conkling Bruces, who lived in Cambridge during the 1920s.
Cullen obtained his M. A. at Harvard and Beauford was aware of his writing from pieces that Cullen had published in Crisis and Opportunity magazines. Cullen spoke with Beauford about his desire to go to Paris*. He would make the transatlantic voyage in 1928 with funds from a Guggenheim grant.
According to Beauford's biographer, David A. Leeming:
Beauford encountered Cullen again when he moved to New York City. Cullen encouraged him to read works by Harlem Renaissance writers such as Zora Neale Hurston, Alain Locke, and Claude McKay. The two men would meet at "306," an address on West 141st Street where black artists and intellectuals gathered to discuss issues and voice concerns. Among those who frequented this address were writers Richard Wright, Claude McKay, and Langston Hughes, and artists Jacob Lawrence and Selma Burke.
Beauford and Cullen would never meet in Paris. Cullen died of hypertension and uremia in 1946 and Beauford would journey to Paris for the first time eight years later.
*Palmer Hayden, who visited Paris in 1932, would implant the idea of visiting France in Beauford's already receptive mind.
1941 Carl Van Vechten
Beauford was in his twenties when met Cullen. This was during his "Boston years." The two men were introduced by an affluent black couple, the Roscoe Conkling Bruces, who lived in Cambridge during the 1920s.
Cullen obtained his M. A. at Harvard and Beauford was aware of his writing from pieces that Cullen had published in Crisis and Opportunity magazines. Cullen spoke with Beauford about his desire to go to Paris*. He would make the transatlantic voyage in 1928 with funds from a Guggenheim grant.
According to Beauford's biographer, David A. Leeming:
Beauford was fascinated by Cullen, by his somewhat flamboyant style, and by the idea of Paris. The two men maintained a friendship during the 1930s and 1940s, and Cullen collected a few of Beauford's paintings. After ... his return from Paris, Cullen would become a schoolteacher. It is of coincidental interest that he taught beginning French to a junior high school boy who would become one of Beauford's closest friends-the young James Baldwin.
Beauford encountered Cullen again when he moved to New York City. Cullen encouraged him to read works by Harlem Renaissance writers such as Zora Neale Hurston, Alain Locke, and Claude McKay. The two men would meet at "306," an address on West 141st Street where black artists and intellectuals gathered to discuss issues and voice concerns. Among those who frequented this address were writers Richard Wright, Claude McKay, and Langston Hughes, and artists Jacob Lawrence and Selma Burke.
Beauford and Cullen would never meet in Paris. Cullen died of hypertension and uremia in 1946 and Beauford would journey to Paris for the first time eight years later.
*Palmer Hayden, who visited Paris in 1932, would implant the idea of visiting France in Beauford's already receptive mind.
Live Ideas: Baldwin and Delaney
Professor Rachel Cohen of Sarah Lawrence College provided a wonderful tribute to Beauford for the Les Amis blog in anticipation of moderating a discussion about Beauford and James Baldwin that was scheduled for the New York Live Arts Festival in April 2014.
The video of this session is now on YouTube:
Live Ideas: Baldwin and Delaney
It is an hour and 28 minutes long.
Joining Cohen on stage at the Festival were David A. Leeming, biographer of Beauford and James Baldwin, and Diedra Harris-Kelley, co-director of the Romare Bearden Foundation.
Screenshot from Live Ideas: Baldwin and Delaney video
From left to right: Diedra Harris-Kelley, David A. Leeming, and Rachel Cohen
Below are several highlights of the session that I found to be of particular interest:
Portrait of James Baldwin
(1965) Oil on canvas
25.5 x 21.25 inches
Signed and dated lower left
Image courtesy of Levis Fine Art
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Dark Rapture
(1941) Oil on canvas
Private collection
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
The video of this session is now on YouTube:
Live Ideas: Baldwin and Delaney
It is an hour and 28 minutes long.
Joining Cohen on stage at the Festival were David A. Leeming, biographer of Beauford and James Baldwin, and Diedra Harris-Kelley, co-director of the Romare Bearden Foundation.
From left to right: Diedra Harris-Kelley, David A. Leeming, and Rachel Cohen
Below are several highlights of the session that I found to be of particular interest:
- "Painterly" discussion of Beauford's work by Diedra Harris-Kelley: 14:00 minutes
- David A. Leeming discusses Beauford's life in New York: 21:20 minutes
- Rare footage of a round-table discussion with James Baldwin, Alvin Ailey, Albert Murray, and Romare Bearden about Paris: 35:50 minutes
- Diedra Harris-Kelley describes one of Beauford's portraits of James Baldwin: 41:00 minutes
(1965) Oil on canvas
25.5 x 21.25 inches
Signed and dated lower left
Image courtesy of Levis Fine Art
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
- Diedra Harris-Kelley describes the color "yellow" from a painter's point of view: 43:35 minutes
- Diedra Harris-Kelley discusses Beauford's "back and forth" between figurative and abstract works: 47:30 minutes
- David A. Leeming discusses the impetus behind Beauford's Rosa Parks series: 51:05 minutes
- David A. Leeming reads the story of his first encounter with Beauford: 53:58 minutes
- Diedra Harris-Kelley responds to a question about Beauford's relationship with the New York School of Modernism: 1:05:48 minutes
- David A. Leeming tells a story about Dark Rapture: 1:10:20 minutes
(1941) Oil on canvas
Private collection
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Beauford in Red
The commemorative plaques that will honor Beauford at two locations in Montparnasse will be lettered in red.
As Les Amis prepares for the installation, I thought it appropriate to post images of several works in which Beauford favored the color red.
Abstract in Orange and Red
(1963) Gouache on wove paper
Image courtesy of Levis Fine Art
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
The Sage Black
(1967) Oil on canvas
Private collection
Image from Artsmia Web site
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Abstraction #12
(1963) Oil on canvas
Image courtesy of Levis Fine Art
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Self-portrait (detail)
(1944) Oil on Canvas
Art Institute of Chicago - Gallery 262
Image courtesy of Tim Paulson
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Untitled
(1963) Aquarelle on paper
© Estate of Beauford Delaney,
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Image © Discover Paris!
More news about the installation is coming soon. Stay tuned!
As Les Amis prepares for the installation, I thought it appropriate to post images of several works in which Beauford favored the color red.
(1963) Gouache on wove paper
Image courtesy of Levis Fine Art
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
(1967) Oil on canvas
Private collection
Image from Artsmia Web site
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
(1963) Oil on canvas
Image courtesy of Levis Fine Art
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
(1944) Oil on Canvas
Art Institute of Chicago - Gallery 262
Image courtesy of Tim Paulson
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
(1963) Aquarelle on paper
© Estate of Beauford Delaney,
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Image © Discover Paris!
More news about the installation is coming soon. Stay tuned!
Beauford's Paris: Saint Germain des Prés
The Saint Germain des Prés district in Paris was important to Beauford for personal and professional reasons.
He serendipitously encountered James Baldwin at the famous Café de Flore on his first full day in Paris in 1953. According to biographer David A. Leeming, Beauford
Café de Flore today
© Discover Paris!
Baldwin was having a drink with his friend Mary Painter at the time, and she and Beauford became great friends. Painter had an apartment at an unknown number on rue Bonaparte, where Beauford, Baldwin, and other friends visited her often.
Beauford and Baldwin were patrons of the night spot Le(s) Nuage(s), owned by Johnny Romero and located on rue Bernard Palissy. The March 1966 edition of Negro Digest reported the club to be
Photo of Beauford, Baldwin, Romero, and Baldwin's brother, Wilmer
at Les Nuages; found in Beauford's paintbox
© Discover Paris!
Beauford exhibited paintings in group shows at the Galerie Breteau, 70, rue Bonaparte, in 1959, 1961, and 1962. The gallery was less than three minute's walk from the monolithic church, Saint-Sulpice.
Saint Sulpice
© Discover Paris!
His works were featured many times at the American Cultural Center, 3 rue de Dragon, and he was honored with a one-man show there in 1969.
We Love Beauford
(Beauford is front and center)
Photo courtesy of Robert Tricoire
He serendipitously encountered James Baldwin at the famous Café de Flore on his first full day in Paris in 1953. According to biographer David A. Leeming, Beauford
... had made his way down to St. Germain des Prés and was crossing the street between the Café Flore and the Brasserie Lipp when he heard a voice urgently shouting his name. In an instant, with horns honking all around him, he was wrapped in the arms of James Baldwin...
© Discover Paris!
Baldwin was having a drink with his friend Mary Painter at the time, and she and Beauford became great friends. Painter had an apartment at an unknown number on rue Bonaparte, where Beauford, Baldwin, and other friends visited her often.
Beauford and Baldwin were patrons of the night spot Le(s) Nuage(s), owned by Johnny Romero and located on rue Bernard Palissy. The March 1966 edition of Negro Digest reported the club to be
the place where the new generation of Negro American expatriates congregate in Paris...just around the corner from the famed Cafe de Flore and Aux Deux Magots.
[It] is directed by Juan Romero, out of Puerto Rico via Spanish Harlem and Greenwich Village.
at Les Nuages; found in Beauford's paintbox
© Discover Paris!
Beauford exhibited paintings in group shows at the Galerie Breteau, 70, rue Bonaparte, in 1959, 1961, and 1962. The gallery was less than three minute's walk from the monolithic church, Saint-Sulpice.
© Discover Paris!
His works were featured many times at the American Cultural Center, 3 rue de Dragon, and he was honored with a one-man show there in 1969.
(Beauford is front and center)
Photo courtesy of Robert Tricoire
New Beauford Delaney Watercolors at Knoxville Museum of Art
On March 14, 2015, I published an article that describes three Beauford Delaney watercolors that are currently on display at the Knoxville Museum of Art.
See them presented by the museum's curator, Stephen C. Wicks, in this 2:38-minute video:
See them presented by the museum's curator, Stephen C. Wicks, in this 2:38-minute video:
Two Beauford Delaney Paintings Sold at Ascension: A Century of African-American Art at Swann Auction Galleries
Swann Auction Galleries' "Ascension: A Century of African-American Art" sale is now history.
Two of the three Beauford Delaney paintings that were put up for auction were sold.
Untitled (Abstraction in Green), described as "a radiant example of Delaney's mid-career abstraction in a warm, yellowish green," was estimated at $30,000 to $40,000. It sold for $35,000 (buyer's premium included*).
Untitled (Abstraction in Green)
(1961) Oil on linen canvas
410x275 mm; 16x10 inches
Signed in oil, lower right recto. Dated in oil, lower left recto.
Signed, dated and inscribed "Clamart, Seine" in oil, verso.
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Provenance: gift from from the artist; Don Fink, Paris, thence by descent to his estate; private collection, Paris.
Spanish Youth's estimated value was $5,000 to $7,000. It sold for $8,125 (including buyer's premium*).
Spanish Youth
(1967-68) Oil on linen canvas
610x457 mm; 24x18 inches.
Signed and dated in oil, lower right.
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist; Richard A. Long, Atlanta; thence by descent to his estate.
Untitled (Portrait of a Young Man), valued at $6,000 to $9,000, remains unsold.
%2BApril%2B2015_est%2B%246K-%249K.jpg)
Untitled (Portrait of a Young Man)
(circa 1930-35) Color pastels and charcoal on gray, textured wove paper
597x445 mm; 23x17½ inches
Signed in charcoal, lower left
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist's brother Joseph Delaney; private collection.
*The buyer's premium at Swann Auction Galleries is 25% of the "hammer price" for works sold at up to $100,000.
Two of the three Beauford Delaney paintings that were put up for auction were sold.
Untitled (Abstraction in Green), described as "a radiant example of Delaney's mid-career abstraction in a warm, yellowish green," was estimated at $30,000 to $40,000. It sold for $35,000 (buyer's premium included*).
(1961) Oil on linen canvas
410x275 mm; 16x10 inches
Signed in oil, lower right recto. Dated in oil, lower left recto.
Signed, dated and inscribed "Clamart, Seine" in oil, verso.
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Provenance: gift from from the artist; Don Fink, Paris, thence by descent to his estate; private collection, Paris.
Spanish Youth's estimated value was $5,000 to $7,000. It sold for $8,125 (including buyer's premium*).
(1967-68) Oil on linen canvas
610x457 mm; 24x18 inches.
Signed and dated in oil, lower right.
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist; Richard A. Long, Atlanta; thence by descent to his estate.
Untitled (Portrait of a Young Man), valued at $6,000 to $9,000, remains unsold.
%2BApril%2B2015_est%2B%246K-%249K.jpg)
(circa 1930-35) Color pastels and charcoal on gray, textured wove paper
597x445 mm; 23x17½ inches
Signed in charcoal, lower left
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist's brother Joseph Delaney; private collection.
*The buyer's premium at Swann Auction Galleries is 25% of the "hammer price" for works sold at up to $100,000.
Ascension: A Century of African-American Art at Swann Auction Galleries
Once again, Swann Auction Galleries will make Beauford Delaney works available for purchase during an African-American Art sale. This spring's auction is called "Ascension: A Century of African-American Art." It will be held on Thursday, April 2 at 2:30 PM.
Three Beauford Delaney paintings will be auctioned at this event. Two are portraits and one is an abstract expressionist work.
Untitled (Abstraction in Green)
(1961) Oil on linen canvas
410x275 mm; 16x10 inches
Signed in oil, lower right recto. Dated in oil, lower left recto.
Signed, dated and inscribed "Clamart, Seine" in oil, verso.
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Provenance: gift from from the artist; Don Fink, Paris, thence by descent to his estate; private collection, Paris.
Don Fink was an expatriate artist living in Paris who became part of Beauford Delaney's circle of friends soon after his arrival in Paris in 1953. They showed together in 1956 at Galerie Arnaud in a group exhibition of abstract American painters.
Swann's catalog describes this painting as "a radiant example of Delaney's mid-career abstraction in a warm, yellowish green." Its estimated value is $30,000 to $40,000.
Untitled (Portrait of a Young Man)
(circa 1930-35) Color pastels and charcoal on gray, textured wove paper
597x445 mm; 23x17½ inches
Signed in charcoal, lower left
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist's brother Joseph Delaney; private collection.
The auction catalog qualifies this portrait as "sensitive" and indicates that it was likely created by Beauford soon after he moved to New York. He may have painted it to show at his first solo exhibition, Exhibit of Portrait Sketches by Beauford Delaney, which was held at the 135th Street Branch of the New York Public Library in 1930. The show consisted of five pastel and 10 charcoal portraits.
The estimated value of Untitled (Portrait of a Young Man) is $6,000 to $9,000.
Spanish Youth
(1967-68) Oil on linen canvas
610x457 mm; 24x18 inches.
Signed and dated in oil, lower right.
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist; Richard A. Long, Atlanta; thence by descent to his estate.
This painting dates over ten years after Beauford visited Spain with his friend Larry Calcagno in August 1956. The two men visited mutual friend Jim LeGros in Ibiza and were joined by James Baldwin, Baldwin's friend Arnold, and Leslie Schenk. They later traveled to Majorca.
The estimated value of this work is $5,000 to $7,000.
To find out about the buying process, visit the following page on the gallery’s Web site: http://www.swanngalleries.com/auctions/buying/.
For more information about this auction, contact Imani Higginson at .
Three Beauford Delaney paintings will be auctioned at this event. Two are portraits and one is an abstract expressionist work.
(1961) Oil on linen canvas
410x275 mm; 16x10 inches
Signed in oil, lower right recto. Dated in oil, lower left recto.
Signed, dated and inscribed "Clamart, Seine" in oil, verso.
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Provenance: gift from from the artist; Don Fink, Paris, thence by descent to his estate; private collection, Paris.
Don Fink was an expatriate artist living in Paris who became part of Beauford Delaney's circle of friends soon after his arrival in Paris in 1953. They showed together in 1956 at Galerie Arnaud in a group exhibition of abstract American painters.
Swann's catalog describes this painting as "a radiant example of Delaney's mid-career abstraction in a warm, yellowish green." Its estimated value is $30,000 to $40,000.
(circa 1930-35) Color pastels and charcoal on gray, textured wove paper
597x445 mm; 23x17½ inches
Signed in charcoal, lower left
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist's brother Joseph Delaney; private collection.
The auction catalog qualifies this portrait as "sensitive" and indicates that it was likely created by Beauford soon after he moved to New York. He may have painted it to show at his first solo exhibition, Exhibit of Portrait Sketches by Beauford Delaney, which was held at the 135th Street Branch of the New York Public Library in 1930. The show consisted of five pastel and 10 charcoal portraits.
The estimated value of Untitled (Portrait of a Young Man) is $6,000 to $9,000.
(1967-68) Oil on linen canvas
610x457 mm; 24x18 inches.
Signed and dated in oil, lower right.
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist; Richard A. Long, Atlanta; thence by descent to his estate.
This painting dates over ten years after Beauford visited Spain with his friend Larry Calcagno in August 1956. The two men visited mutual friend Jim LeGros in Ibiza and were joined by James Baldwin, Baldwin's friend Arnold, and Leslie Schenk. They later traveled to Majorca.
The estimated value of this work is $5,000 to $7,000.
To find out about the buying process, visit the following page on the gallery’s Web site: http://www.swanngalleries.com/auctions/buying/.
For more information about this auction, contact Imani Higginson at .
Walker Art Center in Minneapolis Acquires a Beauford Delaney Painting
Thanks to Milo Bosh of BlackArtistNews.com, I learned of the recent acquisition of a Beauford Delaney painting by Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Walker associate curator Eric Crosby granted Les Amis the following interview about the painting.
(circa 1970) Oil on canvas
Collection Walker Art Center
Gift of the Kunin Family, 2014
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Les Amis: How long has Walker Art Center been "in the market" for a Beauford Delaney painting?
Eric Crosby: This is the first work by Beauford Delaney to enter the permanent collection of the Walker Art Center, and it has come to us as a very generous gift of the Kunin Family. The piece, which is an untitled painting from circa 1970, fills a significant gap in the institution’s painting collection. Past curators at the Walker as well as those currently on staff have been familiar with Delaney’s work for a long time, and this has been a rare acquisition opportunity indeed!
Les Amis: What are the other abstract expressionist works in the collection with which Beauford's work dovetails?
Eric Crosby: As an excellent example of the artist’s abstract expressionist work, it dovetails beautifully with a number of key abstract expressionist paintings already in the collection. Among them are Barnett Newman’s The Third (1962), Mark Rothko’s No. 2 (1963), Robert Motherwell’s Untitled (Iberia)(1958), Clyfford Still’s untitled (1950-C) (1950), Joan Mitchell’s Painting 1953 (1953), and many others. This important Delaney canvas will certainly become a mainstay of our future collection installations, especially those that seek to contextualize mid-century abstraction.
Les Amis: What is the provenance of the painting prior to being added to the Regis collection?
Eric Crosby: Our current understanding of the painting’s ownership history is as follows:
- Estate of the artist, Paris, France
- Joseph Delaney, Knoxville, TN
- The Delaney Estate, Knoxville, TN
- Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, NYC
- Myron Kunin Collection, Minneapolis
- Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Eric Crosby: We are always looking to expand the Walker’s holdings of works by artists collected in depth. Since this is the first work by Beauford Delaney to enter the collection, we look forward to researching the painting and exploring opportunities to contextualize it further. This canvas represents just one facet of this influential painter’s decades of work.
Les Amis: Is the painting currently on display? If so, in which room?
Eric Crosby: Yes, the work is currently on view through August 2 in the 75 Gifts for 75 Years exhibition in the Target and Friedman Galleries.
More on the Knoxville Museum of Art Acquisition of Beauford Delaney Paintings
As a follow-up to the Les Amis blog post entitled Knoxville Museum of Art Acquires Beauford Delaney Paintings, Stephen C. Wicks - Barbara W. and Bernard E. Bernstein Curator at the Knoxville Museum of Art in Beauford's hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee - shares comments about the museum's recent acquisition of several Beauford Delaney paintings and drawings. The number of works acquired has now grown to thirty-seven (37)!
Watercolors make up one of the largest portion of works in the Beauford Delaney estate. I went through the entire contents and selected a group of works on paper that I thought best captured the range of Beauford’s artistic experimentation over a broad span of his career. Of the works on paper we purchased, three are featured in Higher Ground1.
Untitled, circa 1945 is a city scene in which the artist has distilled his surroundings into a series of flat geometric shapes rendered in radiant colors. The halos around the street lights suggest it is evening, but the glowing scene appears devoid of any trace of shadow.
Watercolor on paper
15 1/2 x 22 1/2 inches
Purchased with funds provided by the KMA’s Collectors Circle2, 2014
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Untitled (Clamart), 1959 is a fiery composition built of multiple layers of watercolor, gouache, and faint areas of chalk. It appears to radiate heat, as if you are descending into the heart of the sun. I think it’s one of the most exciting abstractions I’ve ever seen, and it possesses a depth and complexity that can only be appreciated by direct viewing. Interestingly, I came across an upside-down signature along the top margin with a notation “Clamart 1958”, which suggests that Delaney originally oriented the painting so that the dark orange portion was at the bottom. He later signed and dated it at the other end “Beauford Delaney 1959."
%2C%2B1959%2Bsharper.jpg)
Watercolor and gouache on paper
24 1/2 x 18 inches
Purchased with funds provided by the KMA’s Collectors Circle2, 2014
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Watercolor and gouache on paper
24 1/2 x 18 inches
Purchased with funds provided by the KMA’s Collectors Circle2, 2014
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Untitled, 1960 features swirling watercolor marks rendered in a broad range of colors laid out in a square area on a rectangular piece of paper. I’m used to seeing the artist use every inch of his surface, and so this work struck me as interesting and unusual for the fact that he chose this compositional approach. We purchased this work from the estate thanks to funds provided by distinguished collectors Brenda and Larry Thompson.
Watercolor on paper
26 x 19 3/4 inches
Purchased with funds provided by Brenda and Larry Thompson, 2014
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
1The Knoxville Museum of Art’s exhibition Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in East Tennessee is a permanent installation that traces the development of fine art and craft in the region and the surrounding area over the past century. It tells the largely unknown story of the area’s rich artistic history and its connections to the larger currents of American art. Featured works are drawn from the KMA collection along with selected works on loan from several regional museums and private collections.
2KMA Collectors Circle is a special membership group that supports the museum’s efforts to acquire works of art.
Beauford and Baldwin in Istanbul
In the summer of 1966, Beauford spent several weeks with James Baldwin in Istanbul. Photographer and filmmaker Sedat Pakay met Beauford at that time and more recently wrote a beautiful tribute to him for the Les Amis blog.
When I informed Pakay that I would visit Istanbul and wished to see the place where Beauford and Baldwin lived, he referred me to Professor Kim Fortuny of Bosphorus University. Professor Fortuny wrote extensively about Baldwin's time in Istanbul in her book, American Writers in Istanbul. She connected me with Professor Ed Pavlic of the University of Georgia, who is a James Baldwin scholar, and we conferred on the exact addresses of Baldwin's residences in 1966. Both are in the Rumeli Hisari quarter, which takes its name from a 15th-century fortress in the area.
When my husband and I made the trip, Professor Fortuny was gracious enough to take us on a walking tour of the area and show us two places where Baldwin lived: a multi-story house on the Bosphorus shore road and a beautiful home - formerly Vefik Pasha's library - perched atop a steep hill.
Ahmed Vefik Pasha was a 19th-century Ottoman statesman and scholar. The building that housed his library is a few hundred yards down a small road from the massive and impressive fortress.
Rumeli Hisari
© Discover Paris!
The Pasha's library is now a private residence that is protected in part by a stone wall. The only glimpse of the grounds that is visible from the entrance is from the vantage point of a small opening in the metal gate.
The Pasha's library (side view)
© Discover Paris!
Grounds of the Pasha's library (viewed from opening in gate)
© Discover Paris!
The multi-story house on the shore road is where Beauford stayed with Baldwin. Biographer David A. Leeming describes it as "the little house on the Bosphorus," where Beauford "loved living with Jimmy, Richard [a friend of Baldwin] and me." Professor Pavlic shared a quote from a letter by Baldwin from this address dated July 26, 1966 that says "Beauford is here, very brown and working well."
House on the Bosphorus road near the strait
© Discover Paris!
Though the Bosphorus shore road beneath the Rumeli Hisari fortress is lined with cafés and quite busy, the neighborhood adjacent to the fortress and the Pasha's library is peaceful and idyllic to this day.
Rumeli Hisari viewed from the Bosphorus shore road
© Discover Paris!
Across the street from the entrance gate for the Pasha's library
© Discover Paris!
Homes near the Pasha's library
© Discover Paris!
The Rumeli Hisari fortress is located several miles north of the old city of Istanbul, which is where most of the major mosques and other attractions are located.
Hagia Sophia museum
© Discover Paris!
Blue Mosque
© Discover Paris!
Ablution fountain - Sultanahmet Hippodrome
© Discover Paris!
Many thanks to Professors Ed Pavlic and Kim Fortuny for sharing their knowledge and to Professor Fortuny for showing us the Rumeli Hisari quarter.
When I informed Pakay that I would visit Istanbul and wished to see the place where Beauford and Baldwin lived, he referred me to Professor Kim Fortuny of Bosphorus University. Professor Fortuny wrote extensively about Baldwin's time in Istanbul in her book, American Writers in Istanbul. She connected me with Professor Ed Pavlic of the University of Georgia, who is a James Baldwin scholar, and we conferred on the exact addresses of Baldwin's residences in 1966. Both are in the Rumeli Hisari quarter, which takes its name from a 15th-century fortress in the area.
When my husband and I made the trip, Professor Fortuny was gracious enough to take us on a walking tour of the area and show us two places where Baldwin lived: a multi-story house on the Bosphorus shore road and a beautiful home - formerly Vefik Pasha's library - perched atop a steep hill.
Ahmed Vefik Pasha was a 19th-century Ottoman statesman and scholar. The building that housed his library is a few hundred yards down a small road from the massive and impressive fortress.
© Discover Paris!
The Pasha's library is now a private residence that is protected in part by a stone wall. The only glimpse of the grounds that is visible from the entrance is from the vantage point of a small opening in the metal gate.
© Discover Paris!
© Discover Paris!
The multi-story house on the shore road is where Beauford stayed with Baldwin. Biographer David A. Leeming describes it as "the little house on the Bosphorus," where Beauford "loved living with Jimmy, Richard [a friend of Baldwin] and me." Professor Pavlic shared a quote from a letter by Baldwin from this address dated July 26, 1966 that says "Beauford is here, very brown and working well."
© Discover Paris!
Though the Bosphorus shore road beneath the Rumeli Hisari fortress is lined with cafés and quite busy, the neighborhood adjacent to the fortress and the Pasha's library is peaceful and idyllic to this day.
© Discover Paris!
© Discover Paris!
© Discover Paris!
The Rumeli Hisari fortress is located several miles north of the old city of Istanbul, which is where most of the major mosques and other attractions are located.
© Discover Paris!
© Discover Paris!
© Discover Paris!
Many thanks to Professors Ed Pavlic and Kim Fortuny for sharing their knowledge and to Professor Fortuny for showing us the Rumeli Hisari quarter.
Brooklyn Museum Acquires a Beauford Delaney Painting
Les Amis is pleased to report the acquisition of one of Beauford's paintings by the Brooklyn Museum! The museum purchased the work from the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery. I present excerpts from the museum's press release, dated January 2015, below.
The Brooklyn Museum has purchased a powerful painting by the twentieth-century African American modernist artist Beauford Delaney. Untitled (Fang, Crow, and Fruit) resonates deeply with other major mid-century American works in the collection by artists including Stuart Davis and Marsden Hartley, and significantly advances the Museum’s recent focus on acquiring works by African American artists that derive formal or thematic inspiration from traditional African art.
Untitled (Fang, Crow and Fruit)
(1945) Oil on canvas
25 x 30 in. (63.5 x 76.2 cm)
Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum Fund for African American Art, A. Augustus Healy Fund, and Ella C. Woodward Memorial Fund , 2014.73.
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esq., Court Appointed Administrator
The acquisition marks the fifth anniversary of the Brooklyn Museum Fund for African American Art, a collecting initiative focusing on works by African American artists created before the mid-twentieth century.
Untitled (Fang, Crow, and Fruit) dates from Delaney’s last decade in New York (before he immigrated to France, his place of residence from 1953 until his death in 1979), when his style evolved from a broad naturalism to a distinctly more commanding expressionism. He was at work in an unheated Greene Street loft at the time, and he had developed a close friendship with the writer James Baldwin, for whom he was a deeply influential early mentor. Both were seeking empowerment as black artists and gay men. Inspired and sustained artistically by a connection to African culture and art, they found support in the writings of Alain Locke, who from the mid-1920s had encouraged young black artists to derive formal inspiration from African sculpture as European modernists had done. They were attentive to Locke’s altered message of the late 1930s, when he urged artists to seek a more direct relationship with their African ancestry and identity by understanding the long-held centrality of art in African life.
In Untitled (Fang, Crow, and Fruit), Delaney arranged the composition as if representing an offering—the bowl of brilliant-yellow fruit—placed before a Fang reliquary figure from Cameroon that was in fact a well-known object that had been published in an important German volume, Negerplastik, in 1920. A bird, perhaps a spirit symbol, hovers over the fruit, while the black calligraphic forms in the background may suggest a shelter and tree in an African setting. The power of this work grows from the electric intensity of Delaney’s palette and the vibration of forms deriving from his highly animated brushwork. The bowl almost appears to spin, and the figure—suggested with deft marks—to rock.
Delaney’s very thick and lively application of paint was influenced by his interactions with Stuart Davis, with whom he had developed a close friendship and shared equal passions for painting and new jazz. Davis’s own more decoratively abstracted compositions would exert an even greater influence on Delaney’s increasingly flattened designs from 1946 until 1953. Marsden Hartley’s paintings, which were showcased in a large exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in the winter of 1944/45, are certain to have been influential on Delaney’s expressionist facture and iconic subject matter as well.
In addition to resonating with important works of American modernism in Brooklyn’s collection, Untitled (Fang, Crow, and Fruit) further strengthens the Museum’s ability to represent the vital dialogue in which African American artists engaged with traditional African art.
Brooklyn Museum
The painting’s original owner was Emanuel Redfield, a noted civil liberties attorney and counsel to the New York chapter of the Artists Equity Association. Delaney may have presented Redfield with the work as a form of payment as early as 1945, the year of its completion, when Redfield’s services were engaged to challenge a landlord who had denied access to apartments on St. Mark’s Place that [James] Baldwin and their circle of friends had planned to use as a shared living and studio space.
With the purchase of Beauford Delaney’s Untitled (Fang, Crow, and Fruit), a complex and vivid narrative enters the orbit of the Brooklyn Museum’s American Identities galleries, where it will go on view in February 2015. Joining important works on view by Eldzier Cortor, Sargent Johnson, and John Biggers, this painting will allow a deeper exploration of how references to African forms and themes in these works enacted a claiming of heritage and identity, in contrast to the references to African art in Eurocentric modernist works that embody distance, difference, and the “other.” The painting additionally offers a fresh opportunity to study the exposure of African art in New York during the interwar years, particularly in the context of the Museum’s important African holdings and their exhibition from the 1920s forward.
The work was acquired for the Brooklyn Museum by Dr. Teresa A. Carbone, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of American Art, Brooklyn Museum, who has played a leadership role in the creation of the African American purchase fund. The purchase was also made possible by A. Augustus Healy Fund and Ella C. Woodward Memorial Fund.
Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, NY 11238-6052
Telephone: (718) 638-5000
Fax: (718) 501-6134
www.brooklynmuseum.org
The Brooklyn Museum has purchased a powerful painting by the twentieth-century African American modernist artist Beauford Delaney. Untitled (Fang, Crow, and Fruit) resonates deeply with other major mid-century American works in the collection by artists including Stuart Davis and Marsden Hartley, and significantly advances the Museum’s recent focus on acquiring works by African American artists that derive formal or thematic inspiration from traditional African art.
(1945) Oil on canvas
25 x 30 in. (63.5 x 76.2 cm)
Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum Fund for African American Art, A. Augustus Healy Fund, and Ella C. Woodward Memorial Fund , 2014.73.
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esq., Court Appointed Administrator
The acquisition marks the fifth anniversary of the Brooklyn Museum Fund for African American Art, a collecting initiative focusing on works by African American artists created before the mid-twentieth century.
Untitled (Fang, Crow, and Fruit) dates from Delaney’s last decade in New York (before he immigrated to France, his place of residence from 1953 until his death in 1979), when his style evolved from a broad naturalism to a distinctly more commanding expressionism. He was at work in an unheated Greene Street loft at the time, and he had developed a close friendship with the writer James Baldwin, for whom he was a deeply influential early mentor. Both were seeking empowerment as black artists and gay men. Inspired and sustained artistically by a connection to African culture and art, they found support in the writings of Alain Locke, who from the mid-1920s had encouraged young black artists to derive formal inspiration from African sculpture as European modernists had done. They were attentive to Locke’s altered message of the late 1930s, when he urged artists to seek a more direct relationship with their African ancestry and identity by understanding the long-held centrality of art in African life.
In Untitled (Fang, Crow, and Fruit), Delaney arranged the composition as if representing an offering—the bowl of brilliant-yellow fruit—placed before a Fang reliquary figure from Cameroon that was in fact a well-known object that had been published in an important German volume, Negerplastik, in 1920. A bird, perhaps a spirit symbol, hovers over the fruit, while the black calligraphic forms in the background may suggest a shelter and tree in an African setting. The power of this work grows from the electric intensity of Delaney’s palette and the vibration of forms deriving from his highly animated brushwork. The bowl almost appears to spin, and the figure—suggested with deft marks—to rock.
Delaney’s very thick and lively application of paint was influenced by his interactions with Stuart Davis, with whom he had developed a close friendship and shared equal passions for painting and new jazz. Davis’s own more decoratively abstracted compositions would exert an even greater influence on Delaney’s increasingly flattened designs from 1946 until 1953. Marsden Hartley’s paintings, which were showcased in a large exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in the winter of 1944/45, are certain to have been influential on Delaney’s expressionist facture and iconic subject matter as well.
In addition to resonating with important works of American modernism in Brooklyn’s collection, Untitled (Fang, Crow, and Fruit) further strengthens the Museum’s ability to represent the vital dialogue in which African American artists engaged with traditional African art.
The painting’s original owner was Emanuel Redfield, a noted civil liberties attorney and counsel to the New York chapter of the Artists Equity Association. Delaney may have presented Redfield with the work as a form of payment as early as 1945, the year of its completion, when Redfield’s services were engaged to challenge a landlord who had denied access to apartments on St. Mark’s Place that [James] Baldwin and their circle of friends had planned to use as a shared living and studio space.
With the purchase of Beauford Delaney’s Untitled (Fang, Crow, and Fruit), a complex and vivid narrative enters the orbit of the Brooklyn Museum’s American Identities galleries, where it will go on view in February 2015. Joining important works on view by Eldzier Cortor, Sargent Johnson, and John Biggers, this painting will allow a deeper exploration of how references to African forms and themes in these works enacted a claiming of heritage and identity, in contrast to the references to African art in Eurocentric modernist works that embody distance, difference, and the “other.” The painting additionally offers a fresh opportunity to study the exposure of African art in New York during the interwar years, particularly in the context of the Museum’s important African holdings and their exhibition from the 1920s forward.
The work was acquired for the Brooklyn Museum by Dr. Teresa A. Carbone, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of American Art, Brooklyn Museum, who has played a leadership role in the creation of the African American purchase fund. The purchase was also made possible by A. Augustus Healy Fund and Ella C. Woodward Memorial Fund.
Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, NY 11238-6052
Telephone: (718) 638-5000
Fax: (718) 501-6134
www.brooklynmuseum.org
Knoxville Museum of Art Acquires Beauford Delaney Paintings
In an article published in April 2013, Les Amis reported on a Beauford Delaney abstract that was shown at the Knoxville Museum of Art (KMA)'s permanent installation entitled Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in East Tennessee.
Scattered Light
(1964) Oil on canvas
36 5/8 X 28 3/4 inches
Knoxville Museum of Art, purchase with funds provided by the Rachael Patterson Young Art Acquisition Reserve, 2015
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire, Court Appointed Administrator
The painting was on loan. At the time, the museum owned no works by Beauford.
That has since changed. In July 2014, KMA acquired two paintings with funds provided by the KMA Collectors Circle. In August 2014, it acquired nineteen additional works, including Scattered Light. The final payment for this painting was made in January 2015.
The museum is justifiably proud of its collection, given that Knoxville is Beauford's hometown and that the museum owns one work by Beauford's brother, Joseph. Work is currently underway to photograph, mat and frame the acquired Beauford Delaney works. Special attention is being given to those that require conservation work.
Scattered Light still hangs near the Joseph Delaney painting Marble Collegiate Church in the Higher Ground installation.
Joseph Delaney (Knoxville 1904-1991 Knoxville)
(1974-75) Marble Collegiate Church
Oil paint on canvas
72 x 47 3/4 inches
Knoxville Museum of Art, gift of the artist, 1990
Image courtesy of Knoxville Museum of Art
(1964) Oil on canvas
36 5/8 X 28 3/4 inches
Knoxville Museum of Art, purchase with funds provided by the Rachael Patterson Young Art Acquisition Reserve, 2015
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire, Court Appointed Administrator
The painting was on loan. At the time, the museum owned no works by Beauford.
That has since changed. In July 2014, KMA acquired two paintings with funds provided by the KMA Collectors Circle. In August 2014, it acquired nineteen additional works, including Scattered Light. The final payment for this painting was made in January 2015.
The museum is justifiably proud of its collection, given that Knoxville is Beauford's hometown and that the museum owns one work by Beauford's brother, Joseph. Work is currently underway to photograph, mat and frame the acquired Beauford Delaney works. Special attention is being given to those that require conservation work.
Scattered Light still hangs near the Joseph Delaney painting Marble Collegiate Church in the Higher Ground installation.
(1974-75) Marble Collegiate Church
Oil paint on canvas
72 x 47 3/4 inches
Knoxville Museum of Art, gift of the artist, 1990
Image courtesy of Knoxville Museum of Art
Beauford at Reid Hall
I am very pleased to announce that Les Amis de Beauford Delaney is engaged in discussions with Columbia Global Centers about mounting an exposition of Beauford's work at Reid Hall!
Courtyard at Reid Hall
© Discover Paris!
This show will be the second in what Columbia Global Centers hopes is a continuing series of annual events that expose African-American artists to the French public.
Currently, Reid Hall is hosting an extraordinary exhibit of six original silk screens and several reproductions of work by Beauford's contemporary, Romare Bearden. The show is entitled Paris Odyssey: Romare Bearden, Henri Matisse, and Homer. It has two themes that make it both local and global in scope: Homer's epic poems - The Odyssey and The Iliad - and jazz. Reproductions of Henri Matisse's book Jazz (1947) and several of his Odyssean drawings (1935) are displayed with reproductions of Bearden's Paris Jazz series (ca. 1980), his Iliad drawings (1946), and his Odyssey collages (1977).
Banner for Paris Odyssey - Reid Hall
© Discover Paris!
Reid Hall is located near several sites in Montparnasse where Beauford lived and worked, including his first long-term residence at the Hôtel des Ecoles on rue Delambre and his favorite cafés - the Dôme and the Select.
The exposition will feature locally-sourced works from Beauford's Paris years. Look for updates about the planning of the show on this blog.
© Discover Paris!
This show will be the second in what Columbia Global Centers hopes is a continuing series of annual events that expose African-American artists to the French public.
Currently, Reid Hall is hosting an extraordinary exhibit of six original silk screens and several reproductions of work by Beauford's contemporary, Romare Bearden. The show is entitled Paris Odyssey: Romare Bearden, Henri Matisse, and Homer. It has two themes that make it both local and global in scope: Homer's epic poems - The Odyssey and The Iliad - and jazz. Reproductions of Henri Matisse's book Jazz (1947) and several of his Odyssean drawings (1935) are displayed with reproductions of Bearden's Paris Jazz series (ca. 1980), his Iliad drawings (1946), and his Odyssey collages (1977).
© Discover Paris!
Reid Hall is located near several sites in Montparnasse where Beauford lived and worked, including his first long-term residence at the Hôtel des Ecoles on rue Delambre and his favorite cafés - the Dôme and the Select.
The exposition will feature locally-sourced works from Beauford's Paris years. Look for updates about the planning of the show on this blog.
Delaney - Downing - Lee: Group Show at the American Cultural Center in Paris - 1961
In 1961, Beauford participated in a three-person show at the American Cultural Center in Paris. The other artists whose works were displayed were painter Joe Downing and sculptor Caroline Lee.
Joe Downing was an abstract expressionist painter and a fellow southerner, hailing from the state of Kentucky and arriving in Paris in 1950. Both he and Beauford loved jazz and they spent many hours listening to music at Downing's apartment in the Marais. Paintings by these two artists also hung together in shows at the Galerie Arnaud in Paris in 1956 and at the American Cultural Center in 1965.
Downing would paint the sign that said "We Love Beauford" for the retrospective that the American Cultural Center mounted of Beauford's work in 1969.
Caroline Lee was also an American artist from Chicago who came to Paris on a Fulbright scholarship in 1958. I am unaware of any social connections that she and Beauford may have had outside of this show.
Darthea Speyer was in charge at the American Cultural Center at the time of the 1961 show. Only a few months afterward, she would take charge of Beauford's affairs when he jumped overboard while sailing to Greece to meet her for a sponsored painting excursion there. Beauford painted an exquisite portrait of her in 1965.
Darthea Speyer
(1965) Oil on canvas
Image courtesy of Galerie Darthea Speyer
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
I located a rare copy of the catalog for the Delaney - Downing - Lee exhibition at the Kandinsky Library at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
Delaney - Downing - Lee catalog cover
© Discover Paris!
Art critic Julian Alvard wrote the introduction to the catalog. He was quite familiar with Beauford's work, having included it in a group show that he organized at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 1959. He praised Beauford's art, saying it was "open to all the virtues of the sun" and declaring that Beauford had "found the grace that he sought to achieve."
The catalog contains a single page of information about each artist, including a photo and a short list of expositions. On Beauford's page, the notations for his birth year and the year he arrived in Paris are incorrect.
Beauford's page in the American Cultural Center catalog
© Discover Paris!
The catalog does not contain information about the works shown at the American Cultural Center. However, loose leaf inserts present two works by Caroline Lee, one by Joe Downing, and one by Beauford.
Untitled
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
There was no indication of the media used and no mention of a title or whether the work was dated or signed.
The Delaney-Downing-Lee exposition attracted the attention of the acclaimed art critic Jean Guichard-Meili, who was so captivated by Beauford's work that he arranged a private visit to see Beauford's entire body of work at Beauford's Clamart studio.
Joe Downing was an abstract expressionist painter and a fellow southerner, hailing from the state of Kentucky and arriving in Paris in 1950. Both he and Beauford loved jazz and they spent many hours listening to music at Downing's apartment in the Marais. Paintings by these two artists also hung together in shows at the Galerie Arnaud in Paris in 1956 and at the American Cultural Center in 1965.
Downing would paint the sign that said "We Love Beauford" for the retrospective that the American Cultural Center mounted of Beauford's work in 1969.
Caroline Lee was also an American artist from Chicago who came to Paris on a Fulbright scholarship in 1958. I am unaware of any social connections that she and Beauford may have had outside of this show.
Darthea Speyer was in charge at the American Cultural Center at the time of the 1961 show. Only a few months afterward, she would take charge of Beauford's affairs when he jumped overboard while sailing to Greece to meet her for a sponsored painting excursion there. Beauford painted an exquisite portrait of her in 1965.
(1965) Oil on canvas
Image courtesy of Galerie Darthea Speyer
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
I located a rare copy of the catalog for the Delaney - Downing - Lee exhibition at the Kandinsky Library at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
© Discover Paris!
Art critic Julian Alvard wrote the introduction to the catalog. He was quite familiar with Beauford's work, having included it in a group show that he organized at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 1959. He praised Beauford's art, saying it was "open to all the virtues of the sun" and declaring that Beauford had "found the grace that he sought to achieve."
The catalog contains a single page of information about each artist, including a photo and a short list of expositions. On Beauford's page, the notations for his birth year and the year he arrived in Paris are incorrect.
© Discover Paris!
The catalog does not contain information about the works shown at the American Cultural Center. However, loose leaf inserts present two works by Caroline Lee, one by Joe Downing, and one by Beauford.
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
There was no indication of the media used and no mention of a title or whether the work was dated or signed.
The Delaney-Downing-Lee exposition attracted the attention of the acclaimed art critic Jean Guichard-Meili, who was so captivated by Beauford's work that he arranged a private visit to see Beauford's entire body of work at Beauford's Clamart studio.
Beauford and Roland Hayes
Beauford was a huge admirer of Roland Hayes, a singer and composer born in Georgia and raised by sharecropper parents on the plantation where his mother had been a slave. He became an internationally known performer who sang in French, German, and Italian as well as English.
Portrait of Roland Hayes
Robert S. Pious (Robert Savon)
According to the Beauford Delaney biography, Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney
, Hayes was a friend of Charles Cansler, who was principal of Knoxville Colored High School and a mentor of Beauford. Beauford learned of Hayes' musical prowess in Knoxville and always admired him. He particularly loved Hayes's renditions of spirituals and black folk music. He would meet Hayes during his Boston years, when he introduced himself to the singer after a concert where Hayes performed with the Boston Symphony.
Click on the video below to hear Hayes sing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot."
Robert S. Pious (Robert Savon)
According to the Beauford Delaney biography, Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney
, Hayes was a friend of Charles Cansler, who was principal of Knoxville Colored High School and a mentor of Beauford. Beauford learned of Hayes' musical prowess in Knoxville and always admired him. He particularly loved Hayes's renditions of spirituals and black folk music. He would meet Hayes during his Boston years, when he introduced himself to the singer after a concert where Hayes performed with the Boston Symphony.Click on the video below to hear Hayes sing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot."
Beauford's Favorite Writers
According to the Beauford Delaney biography, Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney, Beauford read avidly and wished he could be a writer. Here are images of some of his favorite writers.
Richard Wright
1939 Carl Van Vechten
Henry Miller
1940 Carl Van Vechten
Zora Neale Hurston
Source: Wikimedia Commons
André Gide
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Langston Hughes
1936 Carl Van Vechten
Marcel Proust
Source: Wikimedia Commons
James Baldwin
1955 Carl Van Vechten
Henry Miller's work was perhaps the most meaningful to Beauford because of the troubled relationship that Beauford had with his own sexuality. Biographer David A. Leeming states that Miller "opened up the possibility that sexuality could be liberating and 'good'..." He quotes a letter that Beauford sent to Miller regarding the effect that Miller's writing had on him:
Miller did much to support Beauford, personally and professionally, and the two men became friends for life.
, Beauford read avidly and wished he could be a writer. Here are images of some of his favorite writers.
1939 Carl Van Vechten
1940 Carl Van Vechten
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Source: Wikimedia Commons
1936 Carl Van Vechten
Source: Wikimedia Commons
1955 Carl Van Vechten
Henry Miller's work was perhaps the most meaningful to Beauford because of the troubled relationship that Beauford had with his own sexuality. Biographer David A. Leeming states that Miller "opened up the possibility that sexuality could be liberating and 'good'..." He quotes a letter that Beauford sent to Miller regarding the effect that Miller's writing had on him:
I am sure you understand me when I say that my way is clearer [now] - vision more serene.
Miller did much to support Beauford, personally and professionally, and the two men became friends for life.
Jazz Concert in the Old New York Synagogue
Beauford loved jazz! He considered it to be "warm, vibrant, and conducive to dreaming and romantic musing."*
During his "New York years" (1929-1953), he painted two works depicting jazz musicians performing in a synagogue.
Jazz Quartet
(1946) Oil on canvas
Image courtesy of Burt and Patricia Reinfrank
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Jazz concert in the old synagogue, Lower East Side, New York
(ca. 1946) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
I was curious about the setting for these two paintings and decided to do a little research. I learned that there is a black Jewish population in New York City and that the first African-American synagogue in the city was founded in 1919. I also learned that jazz pianist Willie "The Lion" Smith was Jewish and worked as a Hebrew cantor for a black Jewish congregation in Harlem. However, I was unable to find information about the location of the synagogue in the paintings.
Jazz Quartet hung in the Artsmia exposition Beauford Delaney: From New York to Paris, which originated at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (November 21, 2004 – February 20, 2005) and was subsequently presented by the Knoxville Museum of Art (April 8 – June 25, 2005), the Greenville County Museum of Art (August 3 – October 2, 2005), and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (November 12, 2005 – January 28, 2006).
As a tribute to Beauford's love of jazz, the Philadelphia Museum of Art organized a special event starring Philadelphia jazz pianist Orrin Evans and including a screening of the Oscar-nominated documentary film A Great Day in Harlem.
*Quote from Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney
During his "New York years" (1929-1953), he painted two works depicting jazz musicians performing in a synagogue.
(1946) Oil on canvas
Image courtesy of Burt and Patricia Reinfrank
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
(ca. 1946) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
I was curious about the setting for these two paintings and decided to do a little research. I learned that there is a black Jewish population in New York City and that the first African-American synagogue in the city was founded in 1919. I also learned that jazz pianist Willie "The Lion" Smith was Jewish and worked as a Hebrew cantor for a black Jewish congregation in Harlem. However, I was unable to find information about the location of the synagogue in the paintings.
Jazz Quartet hung in the Artsmia exposition Beauford Delaney: From New York to Paris, which originated at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (November 21, 2004 – February 20, 2005) and was subsequently presented by the Knoxville Museum of Art (April 8 – June 25, 2005), the Greenville County Museum of Art (August 3 – October 2, 2005), and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (November 12, 2005 – January 28, 2006).
As a tribute to Beauford's love of jazz, the Philadelphia Museum of Art organized a special event starring Philadelphia jazz pianist Orrin Evans and including a screening of the Oscar-nominated documentary film A Great Day in Harlem.
*Quote from Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney
Beauford in Istanbul
Beauford visited James Baldwin in Istanbul in July-August 1966 and June 1969. He painted the work shown below in 1966
Untitled (Istanbul, Turkey)
(1966) Oil on thick, cream wove paper
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
and gave it to his friend, Mary Painter (her Paris address is inscribed on the back).
Beauford's biographer, David Leeming, describes this first visit to Istanbul in Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney. He quotes from a letter that Beauford wrote to Henry Miller in July 1966:
Leeming served as Baldwin's secretary and lived with Beauford and Baldwin in Istanbul at that time. He writes that Beauford
Sedat Pakay, Turkish photographer and filmmaker, was one of those friends. Read about Pakay's memories of Beauford here:
Sedat Pakay's Tribute to Beauford
(1966) Oil on thick, cream wove paper
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
and gave it to his friend, Mary Painter (her Paris address is inscribed on the back).
Beauford's biographer, David Leeming, describes this first visit to Istanbul in Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney
. He quotes from a letter that Beauford wrote to Henry Miller in July 1966:Being in Turkey is more exciting to me than being in Venice . . . there are ancient essences . . . the weather and the light are beyond my power to resist.
Leeming served as Baldwin's secretary and lived with Beauford and Baldwin in Istanbul at that time. He writes that Beauford
painted portraits of us all, did watercolors of the hills of Asia across the straits, bestowed a much needed aura of peace on the usually tumultuous Baldwin scene, and became an object of veneration among our Turkish friends, who would come to him each afternoon as to a wise guru.
Sedat Pakay, Turkish photographer and filmmaker, was one of those friends. Read about Pakay's memories of Beauford here:
Sedat Pakay's Tribute to Beauford
Beauford on View at the Pompidou Center - Last Days
LES AMIS DE BEAUFORD DELANEY!
Just over a year ago, I reported that a magnificent Beauford Delaney abstract was placed on display as part of the Multiple Modernities 1905-1970 (also called Plural Modalities) exposition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The exhibit closes on January 26, so there are just a few more days to view it.
(1957) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Artist Bob Tomlinson viewed this work soon after the exposition opened and contributed a commentary on it to the Les Amis blog. Read it here:
Bob Tomlinson on Beauford's Painting at the Centre Pompidou
The abstract hangs in a short corridor (Traverse G) between Rooms 31 and 34 on the 5th floor of the museum. Because it is not displayed in a room, it can be difficult to find. But it is well worth a trip to the museum to see it. Don't delay - January will be over in the blink of an eye!
If you do visit the museum and see the painting, please share your thoughts about it by leaving a comment in the space below.
Centre Georges Pompidou
19 Rue Beaubourg
75004 Paris
Telephone: 01 44 78 12 33
Metro: Rambuteau, Hôtel de Ville, and Châtelet
Open every day except Tuesdays and May 1.
Hours: 11am-10pm. No tickets sold after 8pm.
Celebrating Five Years of the Les Amis Blog!
It's been five years since I began this blog to write about Beauford's life and art and to raise the funds for a tombstone to be laid at his gravesite in Thiais cemetery. Time has flown by!
Portrait of Beauford Delaney
1953 Carl Van Vechten
I want to thank each and every person who has supported Les Amis de Beauford Delaney over the years and encourage you to continue to stay connected as we prepare for the mounting of two plaques in "Beauford's Paris" in 2015.
To celebrate, I'm republishing images of some of my favorite Beauford Delaney paintings.
Untitled
(1961) Watercolor on paper
© Christie's Images
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Embrun
(1963) Watercolor on wove paper
641x501 mm; 25 1/4x19 3/4 inches
Signed and dated "July 19, 1963" in ink, lower right
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Composition 16
(1954-56) Oil on canvas
Image courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, LLC, New York , NY
Private Collection
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Abstract in Orange and Red
(1963) Gouache on wove paper
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Still Life with Pears
(1946) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
I hope you enjoyed your Christmas and wish you a very Happy New Year!
1953 Carl Van Vechten
I want to thank each and every person who has supported Les Amis de Beauford Delaney over the years and encourage you to continue to stay connected as we prepare for the mounting of two plaques in "Beauford's Paris" in 2015.
To celebrate, I'm republishing images of some of my favorite Beauford Delaney paintings.
(1961) Watercolor on paper
© Christie's Images
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
(1963) Watercolor on wove paper
641x501 mm; 25 1/4x19 3/4 inches
Signed and dated "July 19, 1963" in ink, lower right
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
(1954-56) Oil on canvas
Image courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, LLC, New York , NY
Private Collection
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
(1963) Gouache on wove paper
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
(1946) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
I hope you enjoyed your Christmas and wish you a very Happy New Year!