Beauford in the Patricia Scipio-Brim Collection

Patricia Scipio-Brim was an avid collector of postwar and contemporary Black art focusing on abstraction. On February 6, 2025, Swann Auction Galleries hosted a sale of works from her collection.

Among them were two works on paper by Beauford.

Lot 8
Untitled (Abstraction in Yellow, Blue and Red)
(1961) Watercolor on wove paper
655x503 mm; 25⅞x19⅞ inches
Signed and dated in ink, lower right
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Lot 9
Untitled (Clamart, Seine)
(1958) Watercolor and gouache on wove paper
654x508 mm; 25¾x20 inches
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

The yellow, blue, and red abstraction is dated 1961, the year Beauford attempted suicide. Biographer David Leeming wrote that friends took Beauford to San Telmo, Spain after his return from his traumatic trip to Greece and that with the help of Bernice O'Reilly and Gita Boggs, he "managed to maintain a certain calm, and even began to do some watercolors." 

Perhaps this work reflects a lightening of his spirit during that time.

The estimated sale price of this work was $30,000 - $40,000.

It sold for ???

The green and blue abstract is dated 1958. 

The words "Clamart, Seine" beneath Beauford's signature could easily signify two important events that took place during the summer of that year - the arrival of James and Gloria Jones in Paris (they lived on the Ile Saint-Louis in the middle of the Seine River) and the return of James Baldwin to Clamart. 

Beauford spent a great deal of time with all three of them, and the Joneses commissioned several paintings from him.

This abstract was part of the collection of Gloria Jones. Its estimated sale price was $20,000 - $30,000.

It sold for ???

Case Auction Results for Beauford Delaney Watercolor and Catalogs

On January 25, 2025, Case Auctions of Knoxville, TN auctioned a single abstract watercolor and four Beauford Delaney catalogs from the estate of John Z.C. Thomas during Day 1 of its 2025 Winter Fine Art & Antiques sale.

Lot 192
Untitled
(1958) Watercolor on paper
Signed "Beauford Delaney," inscribed "Clamart"
Dated 1958 in black pen, lower right
25"x 18 3/4"
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

As indicated in the blog post announcing the sale two weeks ago, I believe Beauford painted this work during one of his happy periods in 1958. David Leeming describes several of these in Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney—the release of two cases of his paintings stored in New York, a trip to the south to visit René Laubiès, participation in a group show in Germany, a peaceful summer in Clamart with James Baldwin ....

A quote from a letter Beauford wrote to Larry Wallrich in June 1958 may well describe what Beauford wanted to accomplish with this work: "Am today still trying to bring together color compositions from the strange and many-faceted thing that is my life."

The cost estimate for the watercolor and catalogs was $14,000 - $16,000.

The lot sold for $11,590, including buyer's premium.

New Edition of Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney

The new edition of David Leeming's biography about Beauford—Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney—was released by Karma Books on January 7, 2025 (three weeks later than the December 17, 2024 date that was originally projected).

I pre-ordered my copy well before the end of 2024 and was excited to receive it just a few days ago. I wanted to compare my tattered, thoroughly annotated first edition (Oxford University Press, 1998) with this new version in anticipation of my upcoming visit to Knoxville to peruse the Beauford Delaney Papers that the University of Tennessee Libraries made available to researchers as of January 2024.

1st and 2nd editions of Amazing Grace

I was somewhat taken aback when I read the following in Leeming's foreword:

Given the many meticulously researched exhibition catalogues produced in the last twenty years as well as what is sure to be a comprehensive account of his life from Dr. [Mary] Campbell, Amazing grace is reprinted here without any changes in the original text.

But I was gratified to read that the papers Leeming consulted to write the book are now held at UTLibraries.

This long awaited reprint is graced by a laudatory and intensely personal introduction by Hilton Als, who explains his familiarity with Leeming's writings and describes Leeming's treatment of Beauford's life story as "transcend[ing] the limitations of biography to create a historical narrative of huge scope based on Delaney's vulnerable mind and body."

Als mentions three Beauford Delaney works in his introduction—Portrait of a Young Man (ca. 1937-1940), Dark Rapture (1941), and Abstraction No. 9 (ca. 1963)—and provides his take on the emotions Beauford might have experienced in creating them.

An image of Dark Rapture can be found on page 123 of Amazing Grace.

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

Unfortunately, images of the other two works are not presented in the book.

Portrait of a Young Man
(ca. 1937-1940) Color pastel crayons
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Abstraction No. 9
(circa 1963) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Image courtesy of the Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, South Carolina

On the last page of his introduction, Als claims Beauford as the brother he's always felt him to be.

Aside from a higher page count in the new book, there are several differences between the first and second editions of Amazing Grace that will be of interest for readers who wish to approach Beauford's life and art from a scholarly perspective:

1) While there are chapter headers at the top margin of the pages in the first edition, there are none in the second edition.

2) Detail in black and white photos is better discerned in the first edition.

3) Color representations of Beauford's art (now on individual pages) are brighter and more vivid in the second edition.

4) There are six fewer references cited in the bibliography of the second edition.

5) Importantly, the second edition has no index. Anyone who does not have the first edition of the book will be hard pressed to find specific information in the reprinted version.

Case Antiques to Auction Beauford Delaney Watercolor and Catalogs

On January 25, 2025, Case Auctions of Knoxville, TN will place a single abstract watercolor and four Beauford Delaney catalogs up for auction during Day 1 of its 2025 Winter Fine Art & Antiques sale.

The items come from the estate of John Z.C. Thomas, one of the people I affectionately call "The Knoxville Eleven," who traveled to Paris for the Beauford Delaney: Resonance of Form and Vibration of Color exhibition in 2016.

They are being offered as a single lot.

Lot 192
Untitled
(1958) Watercolor on paper
Signed "Beauford Delaney," inscribed "Clamart"
Dated 1958 in black pen, lower right
25"x 18 3/4"
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

The watercolor is a lyrical work with broad, fluid strokes of yellow, orange, and purple - some overlapping and some lying in parallel.

They give me the impression that people are dancing, and I'm guessing that Beauford created this work during one of his happier times in 1958.

The catalogs that complete the lot are the following:

BEAUFORD DELANEY: THE COLOR YELLOW (Richard J. Powell, Atlanta: High Museum of Art, 2002)

BEAUFORD DELANEY: RESONANCE OF FORM AND VIBRATION OF COLOR (Les Amis de Beauford Delaney & Wells International Foundation, Paris: Columbia Global Centers - Reid Hall, 2016)

BEAUFORD DELANEY AND JAMES BALDWIN: THROUGH THE UNUSUAL DOOR (Stephen C. Wicks, ed., Knoxville, TN: Knoxville Museum of Art, 2020), with trifold exhibition brochure and single-sheet timeline detailing Baldwin and Delaney's relationship

BE YOUR WONDERFUL SELF: THE PORTAITS OF BEAUFORD DELANEY (New York: Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 2022).

The cost estimate for the watercolor and catalogs is $14,000 - $16,000.

For information about the sale, click HERE.