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BEAUFORD DELANEY: SO SPLENDID A JOURNEY,

the first full-length documentary about Beauford.


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Saturday, September 11, 2021

Be Your Wonderful Self: The Portraits of Beauford Delaney

On Wednesday, September 8, the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery (MRG) launched its third solo exhibition of Beauford Delaney paintings. Be Your Wonderful Self: The Portraits of Beauford Delaney features 25 portraits and 7 abstract works with the intent to explore the passion with which Beauford undertook - and masterfully mingled - both forms of artistic expression.

Self Portrait
(1962) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

 According to MRG, the exhibition will present paintings that span thirty-one years of Beauford's career, "beginning with his masterful early portrait of a young James Baldwin, Dark Rapture (1941), and terminating with his penetrating 1972 depiction of Jean Genet."

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


Jean Genet
(1972) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Many of the works in this show were displayed at the Studio Museum in Harlem retrospective organized by Richard Long in 1978.  I'm particularly partial to the portrait of my friend, Colin Gravois.

Colin Gravois (aka Portrait of a Man in Green)
(c. 1968) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

The exhibition catalog will include new scholarship by Mary Campbell, Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, whose current book project examines the religious impulses at play in Beauford's paintings and drawings.  It will also feature numerous images of previously unpublished archival materials and a section dedicated to "statements from such historical and contemporary voices as James Baldwin, Richard Long, Julie Mehretu, Georgia O’Keeffe and Amy Sherald, who describe the indelible impact Delaney’s work had on their practices and the broader evolution of 20th century modernism."

Be Your Wonderful Self will be on display through Saturday, November 13. To see installation views of the exhibition, click HERE.

If you're in New York and wish to visit the exhibition in person, MRG encourages you to reserve a time slot by clicking HERE. Note that you must show proof of vaccination along with a valid photo ID upon entry.

Michael Rosenfeld Gallery
100 Eleventh Avenue @ 19th
New York, NY 10011
T: 212.247.0082
F: 212.247.0402

Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC is Special Advisor and Representative of the Estate of Beauford Delaney.

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