Where to Find Beauford's Art: Swann Auction Galleries African American Fine Art Auction - October 2013

After selling a Beauford Delaney self-portrait at its African American Fine Art Auction in February, Swann Galleries is pleased to offer three magnificent paintings by Beauford at its October 2013 auction: Point of Departure: Postwar African-American Fine Art.

The first work that appears in the auction catalog is entitled Embrun:

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
This painting was exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, with the label on the frame back. The estimated sale price is $8,000 - $12,000.

The second of the three paintings is entitled Untitled (Composition in Blue).

Untitled (Composition in Blue)
(1963) Watercolor on wove paper
641x501 mm; 25 1/4x19 3/4 inches
Signed, dated and inscribed "Paris" in ink, lower right
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
The estimated sale price for this work is $8,000 - $12,000.

The third painting, also called Untitled, is the pièce de résistance – the showpiece of the three works. It was created in Beauford's favorite color - yellow.

Untitled
(1968) Oil on cotton canvas
610x502 mm; 24x19 3/4 inches
Signed and dated in oil, lower left
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
It was also exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, with the label on the frame back.

Swann Auction Galleries describes Untitled as follows:

In this striking canvas, Beauford Delaney combines a representation of an African fertility figure within a saturated yellow color field painting. Delaney had an interest in African sculpture going back to his reading of Alain Locke's New Negro, and visiting artist Cloyd Boykin's Primitive African Arts Center in the 1930s. Having seen the influence of African art on Picasso and other modernist painters in both New York and Paris, Delaney often incorporated African motifs and figures, including Earth Mother, 1950 and Mokonde Figure, 1952. This oil is from the same year as his Portrait of Ella Fitzgerald in the Walter O. Evans Collection of African-American Art, the last fully productive year of his Parisian period. In both paintings, the figure is subsumed within the dominant yellow swirls of color. Three years later, Delaney even portrayed himself as an African figure in his Self-Portrait, 1971. Leeming p. 41 and 102; Powell p. 58.

Its estimated sale price is $50,000 - $75,000.

All three paintings were acquired directly from the artist by James and Gloria Jones in Paris. From the estate of Gloria Jones, New York, they were acquired for a private New York collection. American writer James Jones and his wife Gloria were close friends, collectors and supporters of Beauford while he lived in Paris.

Point of Departure: Postwar African-American Fine Art is listed as Sale 2323 on Swann Auction Galleries Web site. For details, click here.