Beauford and the Portrait of Stanislas Rodanski

A couple of weeks ago, I published an article in the Entrée to Black Paris blog that presented a contemporary art exhibition called École Paris-BXL, which was shown at the Galerie Transplantation in the Chemin du Montparnasse in Paris. Though I was initially intrigued by the story behind the gallery and the curator who mounted this exhibition, I knew that I had to see the show for myself when I saw an image of Beauford with one of his portraits on the advertisement.

Signage at entrance to Galerie Transplantation
© Entrée to Black Paris
The photo was published in a journal called Le Musée Vivant, which was founded in 1937 by a French woman named Madeleine Rousseau.

When I arrived at the exhibition, I found that in addition to artwork created by young African-diaspora artists living in Paris and Brussels, curator Amandine Nana had made a small archive of articles and photos from Le Musée Vivant available for consultation. I was thrilled to discover that the photo of Beauford appeared on the cover of Issue No. 23-24, 3e Trim 1964, entitled "Les Artistes dans leur Atelier."

Front page of Le Musée Vivant No. 23-24 1964
© Entrée to Black Paris

Article about Beauford in Le Musée Vivant No. 23-24 1964
© Entrée to Black Paris
The journal describes visits to many artist studios, including Beauford's. In a two-page article about the visit to Beauford's studio, Rousseau waxes poetic about the works she and others viewed there. She identifies the figure in the portrait shown in the photograph as being opera singer Sergei Radamsky and describes how the visitors' observations about this painting led the conversation first to music, then to science. She quotes Julian Alvard, the organizer of an exhibition called Le Nuage Crève to which Beauford contributed a yellow abstract, saying that Alvard referred to Beauford's painting as "an emanation of the sun." The rest of the article delves into a recitation of recent astronomical discoveries and ends with a philosophical musing about how art precedes science.

I immediately thought to myself that the subject of the portrait, which is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of New York, was identified as surrealist poet Stanislas Rodanski.

Stanislas Rodanski
1963 Oil on canvas
1992.296
Beauford Delaney (1901-1979)
(c) Droits réservés
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
George A. Hearn Fund, 1992
I searched for images of Radamsky on the Internet and came up with the one found on this Amazon site: Der Ve[r]fo[l]gte Tenor

Though Beauford often took liberties with his portrayals of people in his portraits, there are significant similarities between the photo portrait found at the above mentioned link and Beauford's 1963 portrait.

In my article about the portrait at the Met, I mention that it is questionable whether Beauford ever met Rodanski because Rodanski was confined to a mental institution in Lyon in 1953 – the same year that Beauford arrived in Paris. Rodanski was 27 years old at the time and he never left the institution, dying there in 1981.

It is much more likely that Beauford painted Radamsky, whom he met in New York and with whom he traveled to Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands in 1954. Radamsky (1890-1973) would have been 73 years old at the time Beauford produced this painting.

Beauford at MoMA

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City holds two works by Beauford.

One is a portrait of Howard Swanson, a classical music composer who lived in Paris from 1952 to 1966.

This other is Composition 16, the magnificent Abstract Expressionist painting that stopped my heart when I saw an image of it online several years ago.

Composition 16
(1954-1956) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Artist Glenn Ligon wrote the following about the painting for the 2019 publication Among Others: Blackness at MoMA:

“Have been working and living with the many people who make up Beauford,” Beauford Delaney wrote to his great friend James Baldwin in September 1954, “and trying to merge them into some sense of composition and a workable form of painting.” Composition 16, a modestly sized work on canvas composed of swirling, wormlike strokes of yellow, red, orange, ocher, pale green, and blue paint, some squeezed directly from the tube, is a vivid example of Delaney’s quest to unite disparate aspects of his interior life and artistic practice while keeping a promise to continue “doing all that is possible with paint.” With its suggestion of ground, sun, sky, and allover painting technique, Composition 16 fuses landscape and abstraction, depicting light and color as ecstatic matter. The color yellow, scumbled liberally over the surface of the painting as a unifying element and predominating in many of Delaney’s abstract and figurative works from the period, seems to have held a particular fascination for the artist.

Composition 16 is currently on display at MoMA as part of an on-going, 10-work exhibition entitled Action Painting II. It is installed in Room 405 on the fourth floor in the David Geffen Galleries.

All the works included in this show are part of MoMA's collection. They have been brought together as an exploration of the innovation expressed by selected Abstract Expressionist artists through experimentation with "a variety of materials and techniques." The companion exhibition, Action Painting I, is also on display on the fourth floor (Room 403).

From MoMA's Website:

"Art critic Harold Rosenberg coined the term 'action painting' in 1952 to describe the work of artists who painted using bold gestures that engaged more of the body than traditional easel painting. Often the viewer can see broad brushstrokes, drips, splashes, or other evidence of the physical action that took place upon the canvas."

Click HERE to see a photo of Composition 16 hung next to Helen Frankenthaler's Jacob's Ladder.

Beauford and Bernard Hassell

Bernard Hassell was one of James Baldwin's closest friends. He eventually became one of Beauford's closest friends as well, and cared for Beauford when Beauford was physically ill or mentally fragile. The French government named him one of the trustees of Beauford's affairs when Beauford was committed to Sainte-Anne's Hospital in 1975.

Today, I'm sharing images of three of Beauford's Bernard Hassell portraits.

Bernard Hassell
(Undated) Oil on canvas
Private collection
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Portrait of Bernard Hassell
(1968) Gouache on paper
Private collection
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Bernard Hassell
(ca. 1971) Oil on canvas
Private collection
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
The undated portrait may have been painted in 1966. Biographer David Leeming notes that when he stayed with Beauford prior to driving him to Istanbul for a visit with James Baldwin, Beauford showed him "an amazing profusion of yellow abstractions intermingled with extraordinary portraits whom the painter identified as Walter Anderson, James Baldwin, Bernard Hassell, and many others."

This portrait of Bernard Hassell was shown in the Beauford Delaney: A Retrospective [50 Years of Light] exhibition at the Philippe Briet Gallery in New York in February - March 1991.

In June 1968, Hassell took Beauford to the south of France after finding him wandering the streets in confusion after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leeming indicates that they stayed in three places over a period of six weeks, including a "castle" in Avignon. In the 1968 portrait of Hassell, pPerhaps Beauford is portraying him in the image of this or another building in which they resided during this extended trip.

The inscription in this portrait seems to indicate "Sadagne France." This may be a reference to the town of Châteauneuf de Gadagne, which is not far from Avignon.

In 1971, Beauford once again suffered serious psychological trauma upon learning of the death of his nephew, Sam (Junior). Biographer Leeming describes him as going into "several weeks of steep decline" as a result. James Baldwin learned of Beauford's condition and had him brought to Baldwin's new home in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, where Hassell had taken up residence in the gatehouse.

I Will Not Be Moved - A Look at Beauford's Rosa Parks Series

I have had the pleasure of meeting University of Tennessee Knoxville professor Mary Campbell many times. She is an avid aficionado of Beauford and his work and is currently writing a book about him.

Professor Campbell brings students to Paris for a study abroad art history experience each year. Last summer, Wells International Foundation intern Maija Brennan presented her online exhibition of Beauford's portraiture to Campbell's students.

Campbell's son was part of the Classes Duo Paris/Knoxville program and was one of the children who came to Paris in October 2018 to meet the Paris elementary school students who participated in the program.

In the video below, Campbell delivers a virtual "Cocktails & Conversation" presentation for the Knoxville Museum of Art that provides a wonderful overview of Beauford's career as an artist and takes a deep dive into his Rosa Parks series. She asserts her theory that Beauford's Rosa Parks paintings are actually self-portraits.



One might think this strange, but when you look at the 1962 self-portrait below, you may be more willing to entertain this notion.


Self Portrait, 1962
Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney; Private Collection
Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, LLC, New York , NY
In her presentation, Campbell thoroughly examines the three oil paintings and numerous sketches of Rosa Parks that are presented in Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin: Through the Unusual Door, the magnificent KMA exhibition that is currently on view at the Knoxville Museum of Art.

I encourage you to watch her in this ~47-minute video and come to your own conclusion!