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BEAUFORD DELANEY: SO SPLENDID A JOURNEY,

the first full-length documentary about Beauford.


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Saturday, May 2, 2015

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:

  • "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
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
  • 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

Dark Rapture
(1941) Oil on canvas
Private collection
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

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