The Greene Street Paintings

In Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney, biographer David Leeming states that

"In May [1950] one of Beauford's Greene Street paintings was seen by Henry McBride in Art News as one of the few 'bright spots' in a show at the Whitney Museum."

I presumed that the painting shown was the oil on canvas called Greene Street that Beauford created in 1950.

Untitled (Greene Street)
(1950) Oil on canvas
signed and dated lower left: B. Delaney. 1950
© Estate of Beauford Delaney, by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire, Court Appointed Administrator
Image courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery
But there are at least three additional paintings called Greene Street that predate the exhibition and might have been shown there.

Greene Street
(1940) Oil on canvas
Private collection
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Photo by André Morain from the Artsmia Web site

Greene Street
(1940) Oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Greene Street
(1946) Oil on canvas
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
During a Google search for more information about this show, I learned that the exhibition McBride saw was the 1950 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Sculpture, Watercolors and Drawings, which ran from April 1 - May 28, 1950.

1950 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Sculpture, Watercolors and Drawings
Exhibition catalog cover
Fair use claim

An online archive of the catalog shows Beauford's name and address, along with his assigned catalog number (88) in the index.

It also shows his name listed in the section entitled "Watercolors, Gouaches, and Pastels."

Beauford's listing in 1950 exhibition catalog
Fair use claim

Because all the works shown above are oils, we can be assured that none of them were displayed at the Whitney exhibition.

Unfortunately, the online archive of the catalog contains only six images of works, none of which represent Beauford's Greene Street.

We may never know how many paintings and works on paper of this street exist!