In perusing the catalog for Be Your Wonderful Self: The Portraits of Beauford Delaney, the exhibition that the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art presented in 2021 and 2022, respectively, readers will be captivated by several quotes about Beauford that were written by his personal friends and contemporary admirers.
Catalog cover
Among the former, readers might expect to read the words of James Baldwin, Henry Miller, and Richard Long.
But they may be surprised to find simple, yet poignant quotes by James Jones:
"Beauford, you are the complete artist, not just in the medium of paint but in the medium of life, which is more important."
and Georgia O'Keeffe:
"...He was a very special person—impossible to define. I often think of him as a special event and always with the feeling that it is good to know that he exists..."
Quotes by contemporary admirers also pay tribute to Beauford's life and artistic practice.
Glenn Ligon wrote that for Beauford, yellow is "not just a color to paint but a philosophy to live by."
Julie Mehretu stated that "Delaney's immense, incessantly exuberant persistence on liberation and possibility in marks, light, color, and form through and out of abstraction and blackness is his triumph, no matter what."
And Amy Sherald shared that when she first encountered Beauford's work, "there was immediately something indelible about it that kept me looking."
Alongside the Wells International Foundation, Les Amis de Beauford Delaney continues the work of finding examples of Beauford's influence on contemporary scholars and creators. Visit the links below for more articles that present such influence.
Fraternal Light: On Painting While Black - Part 1
Fraternal Light: On Painting While Black - Part 2
Rachel's Musings: Three Articles About Beauford
Beauford Delaney - A Musical Interlude
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