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.
(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.
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.