KMA Loans Beauford Delaney Works to National and International Venues

From the desk of Stephen Wicks, Barbara A. and Bernard E. Bernstein Curator at the Knoxville Museum of Art: 

The Knoxville Museum of Art is pleased to be able to support loan requests from several museums wishing to borrow works from the KMA’s extensive holdings by Knoxville-born modernist master Beauford Delaney.  

Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN, March 2024-March 2025

Exhibition summary: Two works on paper by Beauford Delaney for display in the museum’s collection galleries. The Hunter owns no works by the artist and its curatorial team is hopeful this year-long loan will help them generate additional support for a Delaney acquisition. 

Art work:

Untitled, circa 1961
Watercolor and gouache on paper, 25 ½ x 19 ½ inches
Knoxville Museum of Art, 2015 purchase with funds provided by
the Rachael Patterson Young Art Acquisition Reserve
© The Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator 

Untitled (Yellow, Red, and Black Circles for James Baldwin, Istanbul), 1966
Watercolor and gouache on paper, 25 5/8 x 19 inches
Knoxville Museum of Art, 2018 Beauford Delaney Acquisition
© The Estate of Beauford Delaney
by Permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator   

Grey Art Museum, New York University, Manhattan, NY,
Americans in Paris exhibition/tour, March 2024-June 2025: 

 

Exhibition Summary: This exhibition represents the first substantial, scholarly overview of the work of American visual artists who pursued artistic training or worked for extended periods in postwar Paris, featuring never-before-published interviews with American and French artists, critics, and dealers. 

 

Exhibition venues:

• Grey Art Museum/NYU, March 2-mid-July 2024
• Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA, September 2024-January 2025
• NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery, February-June 2025 

 

Art work:

 

Blue-Light Abstraction, circa 1962
Oil on canvas, 25 3/4 x 21 1/2 inches
Knoxville Museum of Art, 2018 Beauford Delaney Acquisition
© The Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

 

Centre Pompidou, Paris, FRANCE
Paris Noir exhibition, March 19-June 30, 2025

 

Exhibition summary: A groundbreaking exhibition devoted to the trajectory of 50 black artists based in France from the 1950s-1990s, and the importance artistic, social, and political factors that informed their course of their work. 

 

Art work: 

 

 

Untitled (African Figure), circa 1968
Oil and watercolor monoprint on paper, 25 1/2 x 19 1/2 inches
Knoxville Museum of Art, 2018 Beauford Delaney Acquisition
© The Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

 

Scattered Light, 1964
Oil on canvas, 39 x 24 inches
Knoxville Museum of Art,
2015 purchase with funds provided by 

the Rachael Patterson Young Art Acquisition Reserve 

© The Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

While promoting the KMA’s Delaney collection, these loans are an important means of supporting important museum exhibitions organized by distinguished colleagues, and bringing Beauford Delaney’s extraordinary life and work to the attention of museum audiences around the world.