Beauford's First European Road Trip

In April 1954, Beauford joined Sergei Radamsky on a road trip to Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.

Radamsky was a opera singer and voice instructor whom Beauford had met in New York. Beauford shared his love for opera, and music was a major focus of their journey.

Biographer David A. Leeming states that Beauford wrote in his journals about hearing Madame Butterfly and Salome at the Staatsoper in Vienna and spending evenings with Radamsky's students, who "sang arias from Don Carlos and Butterfly over many glasses of new wine."

He also states that Beauford wrote to a friend about "the American music he heard on the radio everywhere—Jelly Roll Morton, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday."

Below are YouTube videos of songs from these operas and by these artists.

Enjoy!

Madame Butterfly - Maria Callas - Puccini

Salome - Dance of the Seven Veils (excerpt) - Pittsburg Opera

Don Carlo - Metropolitan Opera House

Jelly Roll Morton - "Dead Man Blues"

Benny Goodman - "Sing Sing Sing"

Ella Fitzgerald - "Cry Me a River"

Billie Holiday - "Blue Moon"

50th Anniversary of Beauford's Solo Show at Galerie Darthea Speyer

Invitation card for 1973 exhibit at Galerie Darthea Speyer

Courtesy of Galerie Darthea Speyer

Just over 50 years ago, the Darthea Speyer Gallery opened a solo exhibition of Beauford's work. Biographer David Leeming states that in this show, "... what stood out were the portraits composed during the years since the 1964 Lambert show." He says that Beauford's purpose in painting these portraits seems to have been to "celebrate the art of painting itself."

Below are images of several of the portraits shown during the 1973 Speyer exhibition.

Portrait of Marian Anderson
(1965) Oil on canvas
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
J. Harwood and Louise B. Cochrane Fund for American Art
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Untitled (Portrait of René Laubies)
(196?) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Bernard Hassell
(Undated) Oil on canvas
Private collection
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Ahmed Bioud
(1964) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Image courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, LLC, New York , NY 

Portrait of Howard Swanson
(1967) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney,
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Image courtesy of Levis Fine Art

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

Robert Kennedy
(c. 1968) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Image courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, LLC, New York , NY

Beauford and John-Franklin Koenig

John-Franklin Koenig was an American painter who served in the Second World War and moved to Paris in 1948 to study under the GI Bill. In 1950, he and Frenchman Jean-Robert Arnaud opened the Galerie Arnaud in the basement of Arnaud's bookstore, and in 1953, the two men launched the contemporary art publication called Cimaise.

Beauford's biographer, David A. Leeming, mentions Koenig only twice in Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney. He lists Koenig among the friends Beauford made in the American artist community when he moved to Paris in 1953, and he talks about a 1956 art exhibition at Galerie Arnaud where Beauford exhibited works alongside fellow abstract American artists Sam Francis, Shirley Goldfarb, Joe Downing, Shirley Jaffe, Paul Jenkins, and others.

Several years after the art exhibition, Beauford created this portrait of Koenig.

Portrait of John Koenig
(1968) Oil on canvas
Signed and dated 1968; signed again,
titled and dated again 1968 on the reverse;
titled again on the stretcher
25 1/2 by 21 1/4 in.
64.8 by 54 cm.
© Estate of Beauford Delaney,
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

I have not been able to find out how Beauford and Koenig met and do not know how often they saw each other over the years. 

An interesting passage in "L'anachronique du flâneur N° 12," which contains commentary on the 2016 Resonance of Form and Vibration of Color exhibition, writer Marc Albert-Levin lets us know that Beauford and Koenig lunched together in 1967:

That same year, in 1967, we had lunch with [jazz saxophonist] Marion Brown and Beauford Delaney, at John Koenig's apartment .... I would lie if I said that I remember what we talked about with Beauford that day. I just remember some harmonious time spent together by the four people present--Beauford, John, Marion and I--all happy to share a good bottle and a good meal, amid Koenig's paintings and collages, in his small attic apartment.

I imagine that Beauford must have appreciated Koenig since he took the time to create a portrait of him. The painting, which presents a good likeness of Koenig, was auctioned by Sotheby's during its March 9, 2011 Contemporary Art sale and purchased for $7,500.

Swann Auction Galleries Auctions Brilliant Blue Beauford Delaney Gouache

On April 6, 2023, Swann Auction Galleries auctioned the abstract work shown below.

Untitled
(1956) Gouache on illustration board
724x540 mm; 28 1/2x21 1/4 inches
Signed and dated in ink, lower right
© Estate of Beauford Delaney,
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Beauford painted this work when he lived in the Paris suburb of Clamart. Hues of blue predominate, which makes me recall a statement James Baldwin made about the window of the Clamart apartment that Beauford's biographer, David Leeming, quoted in Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney:

... a kind of universe, moaning and wailing when it rained, black and bitter when it thundered, hesitant and delicate with the first light of morning, and as blue as the blues when the last light of sun departed.

Leeming described works that Beauford showed at the Galerie Arnaud and the Galerie Prisme in early 1956 as "abstractions marked by large areas of paint applied thickly in swirls and various colors--blues, pinks, softer colors than those of the Greene Street period." This work "matches" that description.

Swann's Website indicates that Beauford worked on board in the mid-1950s for only a short time and that his later gouaches were typically done on paper. The estimated sale price for this work on illustration board was $35,000 - $50,000.

The abstract sold for $60,000, including Buyer's Premium (the hammer price was $48,000).