Auction House Websites Provide a Great Look at Beauford's Work

An excellent way to familiarize yourself with Beauford's work is to look at the Websites of auction houses that sell it.

Find the Web links for three of them below.

Each link is accompanied by an image of the work that has fetched the highest price at that auction house to date.

 

CHRISTIE'S

James Baldwin
(1966) oil on canvas
39 1/2 x 29 7/8in. (100.2 x 76cm.)
Signed and dated 'Beauford Delaney 1966' (lower left)
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Sale price: 1,026,000 GBP ($1,150,114), including Buyer's Premium.

 

SWANN AUCTION GALLERIES

Untitled (Village Street Scene)
(1948) Oil on canvas
737x1016 mm; 29x40 inches
Signed and dated in oil, lower left.
Image from Swann Auction Galleries Web site
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Sale price: $557,000, including Buyer's Premium.

 

CASE ANTIQUES

Lot 178
Untitled
(c. 1972) Oil on canvas
63 3/4 x 51 1/4 inches
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Sale price: $348,000, including Buyer's Premium.

Michael Rosenfeld Gallery Presents Bienvenue: African American Artists in France

Life in Paris offers me the anonymity and objectivity to release long-stored memories of sorrow, and the beauty of the difficult effort to release and orchestrate in form and color a personal design. Being in France gives time for reflection. One never leaves home if one was never there.
~ Beauford Delaney, 1966*

Michael Rosenfeld Gallery (MRG) is well represented at the Paris Noir: Artistic circulations and anti-colonial resistance, 1950–2000 exhibition that is on view at the Centre Pompidou in Paris through June 30, 2025.

In parallel with this groundbreaking show, the gallery is presenting Bienvenue: African American Artists in France in New York through July 25, 2025.

MRG describes this exhibition as "a historical survey of seventeen Black American artists who lived and worked in France from the late nineteenth century through the present" that "offers an expanded look into the presence of Black American artists in France, many of whom were seeking respite from the systemic racism that limited their opportunities for education and the recognition of their work in the United States."

Bienvenue focuses specifically on American artists and spans nearly eight decades in its chronological scope, beginning with a 1912 painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859–1937) and ending with a 1989 sculpture by Barbara Chase-Riboud (b.1939).

Anyone who knows MRG knows of the gallery's decades-long devotion to Beauford's legacy. In addition to the work they have done to ensure the visibility of his artwork, they contributed the fundraising campaign to place a tombstone at Beauford's previously unmarked grave in 2009-2010 and have consistently supported this blog.

MRG loaned over half of the paintings by Beauford that hang in Paris Noir, and it is showing six (6) Beauford Delaney paintings in Bienvenue.

Of all the artists represented in this show, Beauford has the most works on display.

Below are images of my favorite works from Bienvenue.

Untitled
(1967) Oil on canvas
15 1/8 x 21 3/4 inches / 38.4 x 55.2 cm
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
By permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Untitled (Night Light)
(c. 1970) Oil on canvas
19 1/2 x 24 inches / 49.5 x 61 cm
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
By permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Bienvenue: African American Artists in France features works by 17 African-American artists. Beauford knew several of them personally, including Ed Clark, Herbert Gentry, and Palmer Hayden.

To see images of the works in this show, click HERE.

Michael Rosenfeld Gallery
100 11th Avenue @ 19th
New York, NY 10011

Regular Hours:
Tuesday–Saturday, 10AM–6PM, or by appointment

Summer Hours
(Memorial Day–Labor Day):
Monday–Friday, 10AM–6PM, or by appointment

*Beauford Delaney quoted in John Ashbery, “American Sanctuary in Paris,” ARTnews Annual Vol. 31 (1966): 146

Beauford at The Drawing Center

The Drawing Center will host a first-of-its-kind exhibition of Beauford's work from May 30 through September 14, 2025.

In the Medium of Life: The Drawings of Beauford Delaney will exclusively feature works on paper. It will be the first comprehensive Beauford Delaney exhibition since the retrospective mounted by the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1978.

The Drawing Center has amassed approximately 90 drawings, gouaches, pastels and notebook sketches for this show. Sources include the Beauford Delaney estate, the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, the Knoxville Museum of Art, and the Beauford Delaney Papers held at the University of Tennessee Libraries.

One of the gouaches on paper in the exhibition was shown in public for the first time in the 2016 Beauford Delaney: Resonance of Form and Vibration of Color exhibition organized by the Wells International Foundation and Les Amis in Paris, France.

Untitled
(1961) Gouache on paper
© Estate of Beauford Delaney,
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

The show will also include several works on canvas and archival materials such as documentary photographs, correspondence, exhibition brochures, and press clippings that are intended to provide a biographical backdrop for Beauford's artistic practice.

Delaney Family Portrait, 1909
Beauford Delaney Papers, MS.3967.
University of Tennessee Libraries, Knoxville,
Betsey B. Creekmore Special Collections and University Archives.*
Image by Wells International Foundation

Founded 24 years after Beauford left NYC for Paris, The Drawing Center's original address (137 Greene Street) was in the same block as Beauford's studio (181 Greene Street). The center moved to its present location at 35 Wooster Street in 1987. 

Click HERE to read about the interesting history of this neighborhood.

For detailed information about the exhibition, click HERE. 

*Conditions Governing Use
Estate of Beauford Delaney,
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator.
Held in the Beauford Delaney Papers, MS.3967,
Betsey B. Creekmore Special Collections and University Archives,
University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

French Press Captivated by Beauford's Portrait of James Baldwin

In his article for The Guardian about the Paris Noir exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, journalist Jason Okundaye writes:

"If [Gerard] Sekoto is the face of the Paris Noir exhibition, then [Beauford] Delaney is its beating heart."

Articles published by the French press about the exhibition seem to corroborate this observation.

L'EssentiART published an article that focuses solely on the Beauford Delaney works in the show. The title of the piece refers to Beauford as the "luminous red line" (fil rouge lumineux) of the exhibition.

A large number of articles include an image of one of Beauford's iconic portraits of James Baldwin.

James Baldwin
(c. 1945-1950) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

The painting represented in the image above is one of the two Beauford Delaney portraits of Baldwin that hang in the second room of the exhibition.

Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin portraits in Room 2
Artwork © Estate of Beauford Delaney
By permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Photo © Entrée to Black Paris

James Baldwin in Room 2
(1967) Oil on canvas
Artwork © Estate of Beauford Delaney
By permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Photo © Entrée to Black Paris

Of the 13 write-ups I found on the first three pages of Google by using the prompt "Beauford Delaney and Paris Noir," seven (7) of them use a full or cropped image of the older, multicolored portrait as the article's anchor image.

An additional two (2) of the articles use the image in the body of the article or in an image slider.

One can only speculate as to why so much attention is being paid to this particular work, especially since Beauford's dazzling portrait of Marian Anderson and his own stunning self-portrait are also part of the show.

What is certain is that Beauford has captivated the French press!

Beauford and Langston Hughes

I recently received notification that the Nevada Museum of Art would include work by Beauford in its exhibition entitled When Langston Hughes Came to Town.

I immediately went to the museum's Website to see what information I could find about the premise of the show and why Beauford is being included in it.

The copy on the Web page indicates that the exhibition will be divided into three parts that explore:

1) Hughes' relationship with the State of Nevada
2) Work created by leading artists of the Harlem Renaissance who had close ties to Hughes
3) Contemporary artists who were inspired by Hughes and made work about his life

A slider near the bottom of the page shows Beauford's portrait of Ella Fitzgerald as one of the works to be displayed in the show.

Portrait of Ella Fitzgerald
(1968) Oil on canvas
Permanent collection of the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah
Gift of Dr. Walter O. and Mrs. Linda J. Evans
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Beauford's name is mentioned in reference to the artists of the Harlem Renaissance with whom Hughes had close ties.

Not being familiar with any close relationship between the two men, I set out to investigate what this might have entailed.

I did not find any mention of Beauford in either of the two volumes of The Life of Langston Hughes, a biography by Arnold Rampersad.

I only found a few mentions of Hughes in Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney by David Leeming, the only Beauford Delaney biography that currently exists.

Leeming says that Beauford encountered Hughes at "the old stable at 306 West 141st Street" in Harlem, which was known simply as "306" by the Black intellectuals who gathered there.

He says that Beauford read "whatever was published in journals by Langston Hughes."

And he mentions that Hughes attended the party celebrating the production of James Baldwin's The Amen Corner in Paris in 1965, which Beauford attended as well.

In 1948, Hughes authored the radio transcripts for an NBC summer replacement series called Swing Time at the Savoy, which was recorded at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. Ella Fitzgerald and her then husband, Ray Brown performed there on July 28, 1948.

I reached out to the museum to request information to supplement my findings. 

Director of Communications Valerie Primeau responded, informing me that Beauford's portrait of Fitzgerald will be the only work of his in the exhibition. 

She also said:

"Although Langston Hughes and Beauford Delaney were prominent figures during the Harlem Renaissance and had shared mutual respect for their art practices, documented interactions are limited.

"This portrait of Ella Fitzgerald was selected because she is one of the greatest jazz vocalists who often performed in the Savoy Room during the period before receiving her major break in the 1930s at the Apollo Theater. Her iconic voice, visually presented with the bold application of color, shows how she illuminated concert halls and jazz venues. 

"Merging the histories of these three artists envelops Hughes’s appreciation of jazz and blues and core expressions of Black Life."

When Langston Hughes Came to Town opens today - May 3, 2025.

It will be on display through February 15, 2026.