A Catapult for Beauford's Legacy

Celebrations organized by the Delaney Legacy Committee in Knoxville, TN took place at the Beck Cultural Exchange Center and the Knoxville Museum of Art (KMA) on October 19, 2023.

The Knoxville News Sentinel published an extensive article and a robust photo gallery of the events online:

Not just paintings on a wall: Knoxville honors Beauford Delaney’s family and art legacy

Beauford Delaney's work honored at Beck Cultural Center, World's Fair Park

In the section entitled "Preserving the Delaney Legacy in Knoxville," the Knoxville News Sentinel mentions that

• KMA has acquired new Beauford and Joseph Delaney pieces.
  
  
• A large gallery space will be devoted to the Delaney brothers within the museum's permanent Higher Ground exhibit beginning Nov. 3, 2023.
  
  
• Delaney pieces have been loaned to the Art Institute of Chicago and the Grey Art Gallery at New York University.

KMA Executive Director David Butler granted Les Amis an exclusive interview that expands upon this information and provides clarification about the origins and activities of the Delaney Legacy Committee.

Les Amis: You said you anticipated about 250 people would come. How many people actually attended?

DB: We had just over 250. It was packed.

Les Amis: Is the gallery space devoted to Higher Ground the same space where Through the Unusual Door was hung?

DB: Actually, it’s the same space, reconfigured and renovated. The room in Through the Unusual Door so memorably hung with Clamart abstracts was a direct inspiration for the expansion of Higher Ground. I have sent some pictures of the installation in process just today!

Higher Ground installation at KMA
Photos courtesy of KMA

Les Amis: Thanks to recent acquisitions, KMA now holds the largest public collection of Beauford’s work in the world. Is the museum actively planning to acquire additional works – specifically oils – or will you “rest on your laurels” for the time being?

DB: We very much hope to continue to add to our Beauford Delaney holdings as resources allow.

Les Amis: Please share information about loans requests for recent and upcoming national and international shows that KMA has fielded in the past 12-24 months, including those for the Art Institute of Chicago and the Grey Art Gallery at NYU.

DB: The KMA board has just approved the loan of Beauford’s Self-Portrait in a Paris Bath House, 1971 (oil on canvas, 21 5/8 x 18 1/8 inches, 2018 Beauford Delaney Acquisition), to the Art Institute of Chicago for the exhibition Project a Black Planet, which opens in Chicago in late 2024 and will then travel to the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona and KANAL-Centre Pompidou in Brussels.

The board has also approved the loan of Beauford’s Blue-Light Abstraction, circa 1962 (oil on canvas, 25 3/4 x 21 1/2 inches, 2018 Beauford Delaney Acquisition) to the Grey Art Gallery, New York University for the exhibition Americans in Paris, which opens in New York in early 2024 and will then travel to NYU Abu Dabhi.

Les Amis: Are any Delaney descendants on KMA’s board or acquisition committees?

DB: Derek Spratley, court-appointed attorney for the Beauford Delaney Estate, serves on the KMA board.

Les Amis: The Knoxville News Sentinel describes the Delaney Legacy Committee as being composed of KMA, UT Libraries, Beck, and the Delaney estate. Please talk about the connection between the Delaney Legacy Committee and The Delaney Project: Gathering Light (if any).

DB: The Delaney Legacy Committee grew directly out of the “Gathering Light” initiative that was spearheaded by Sylvia Peters. We actually got a lot done and had some great momentum going when COVID shut everything down. The Delaney Legacy Committee is the successor to that effort, involves many of the same people, and has more administrative support through the UT Libraries.

Les Amis: Is there any active collaboration specifically between UT Libraries and KMA at present?

DB: The KMA worked closely with the UT Libraries and helped with fundraising for the purchase of the Beauford Delaney papers. It was important that that precious resource stay in Knoxville; UT Libraries has the staff and resources to facilitate public and scholarly access to the papers. Steve Smith, UT Libraries dean, serves on the KMA board, as do Renee Kesler (Beck) and Derek Spratley (Beauford Delaney Estate). Having these key people in leadership positions at the KMA has been tremendously helpful.

Les Amis: Doesn’t the committee also include the UT School of Art Galleries and the UT Humanities Center?

DB: Yes. The School of Art Galleries has significant holdings of works by Joseph Delaney (he was a visiting instructor at UT in his last years); the UT Humanities Center organized an international symposium on Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin during Through the Unusual Door in 2020. I believe the proceedings will be published next summer, I am told. (I should note that the Joseph Delaney Estate is also represented on the Delaney Legacy Committee.)

Les Amis: Is the East Tennessee Historical Society no longer part of the Delaney project?

DB: The East Tennessee Historical Society was instrumental in getting the State of Tennessee to install a historical marker at the site of Beauford and Joseph’s childhood home in downtown Knoxville. All the constituent organizations of the Delaney Legacy Committee have significant holdings of works by or offer programming specifically about Beauford and Joseph, so ETHS isn’t formally a member but is certainly a valued resource and strong ally.

Fall Flowers at Saint-Anne's Hospital

Paris is experiencing beautiful Indian summer days this October, and my husband Tom and I took advantage of the weather to visit Sainte-Anne's Hospital last Sunday.

The day was exceptionally calm and peaceful.  When we strolled up to the main gate of the hospital, we saw that it was bedecked in pink umbrellas and balloons.  We discovered that the hospital is participating in the October Rose campaign for breast cancer awareness.

Main gate of Sainte-Anne's Hospital
© Entrée to Black Paris

Inside view of main gate at Sainte-Anne's Hospital
© Entrée to Black Paris

We hoped to have better luck finding landscaping replete with flowers on this visit compared to our spring excursion to the hospital, and we learned that we'll need to come back earlier in the fall to see the gardens in full splendor. 

 

However, we were pleased to find a wider variety of flowers and more of them than we did in the spring.

 

The last of the Peruvian lilies stood guard in front of the Parc Charles Baudelaire, and beds of impatiens surrounded the three dark statues in the park.

 

Pink Peruvian lilies
© Entrée to Black Paris

Orange and yellow Peruvian lilies
© Entrée to Black Paris

 

Beds of impatiens in Parc Charles Baudelaire
© Entrée to Black Paris

 

 

A tree with huge mushrooms growing from its trunk was a curious sight in the park.

Tree with mushrooms in Parc Charles Baudelaire
© Entrée to Black Paris

Mushrooms on tree trunk
© Entrée to Black Paris

In front of the pharmacy, the space beneath the sculpture of Daphne was completely barren - the soil was freshly turned and ready for a new planting for winter.

Flower bed beneath Daphne
© Entrée to Black Paris

A few morning glories grew wild in the ground in front of the chapel and on its railing.

 

Chapel
© Entrée to Black Paris

 

Wild morning glories
© Entrée to Black Paris

Morning glories on railing
© Entrée to Black Paris

We saw magpies and one of the many cats that live on the grounds during our stroll.  

Magpie
© Entrée to Black Paris

Sainte-Anne's cat
© Entrée to Black Paris

Along the Galerie Luigi Pirandello, a stand of Pampas grass swayed gently in the breeze.

Pampas grass
© Entrée to Black Paris

A single ornamental tobacco plant grew near a sculpture featuring a frolicking goat.

Ornamental tobacco plant and goat sculpture
© Entrée to Black Paris

Ornamental tobacco plant
© Entrée to Black Paris

Multiple types of dahlias, bull's eyes, hot lips, and canna lilies were among the other types of flora we found that day. 

Dahlias
© Entrée to Black Paris

 

Bull's Eyes
© Entrée to Black Paris

Canna lily and Hot lips
© Entrée to Black Paris

We're sure that Beauford would have been thrilled by the palette of colors that Mother Nature prepared for Sainte-Anne residents and visitors alike!

Rare Beauford Delaney Still Life to Be Auctioned on October 19, 2023

Swann Auction Galleries will hold an African American Art sale on October 19, 2023. 

Beauford's Untitled (Still Life) (Lot 10) will be available for purchase during this auction.

Untitled (Still Life)
(1932) Color pastels on green wove paper
584x419 mm; 23x16 1/2 inches
Signed and dated in pastel, lower right
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Swann notes that Beauford rarely painted still lifes and that most of his works of this type date from the 1940s.  

This makes Untitled (Still Life), which Beauford created in 1932, even more unique and valuable.   

The current owner of this pastel on paper acquired it directly from Beauford's brother, Joseph.  Beauford moved to 22 Downing Street in Greenwich Village, just a few doors away from Joseph, in 1932, so it is possible that he created this work and gave it to Joseph that same year.

The estimated sale price of Untitled (Still Life) is $15,000 - $25,000.

For information about the auction, click HERE.

Beauford's "Man with Medallion" Featured in L.A. Exhibition

Beauford's Portrait of a Young Man (aka Man with Medallion) is being featured in an extraordinary exhibition entitled Pictures Girls Make: Portraiture.

Untitled (Portrait of a Man) (aka Man with Medallion)
(c. 1965) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Blum & Poe - an art gallery with exhibition spaces in Los Angeles, New York, and Tokyo - is presenting Pictures Girls Make in Los Angeles. Curated by Alison M. Gingeras, this show bringing together over fifty artists from around the world, spanning the early nineteenth century until today. Moving beyond binary thinking, it strives to emphasize the diversity of subjects, complexities of biography, and array of individual characters that artists have been able to capture through various modes of portrait making.

Pictures Girls Make focuses largely on portraits created by women as it emphasizes the fact that portraiture was and is made by painters of every possible race, ethnicity, caste, and sexuality, as well as by gender-fluid, non-binary artists. It addresses the trend catalyzed by the Black Lives Matter movement for the art market, alongside museums, to embrace Black artists over the past few years, and examines this trend's focus on "new" artists of color while "egregiously" ignoring the complex histories of artists of color. 

The exhibition pays homage to this history by featuring Portrait of a Woman (date unknown) by Joshua Johnson (1763-1824), the earliest known African American professional artist, and Portrait of a Creole Gentleman (circa nineteenth century) by an unknown artist of the Louisiana School as a gesture that gives context to a range of twentieth and twenty-first-century artists of color who have taken up the portraitist mantle.  It also features works by multiple 20th- and 21st-century African-American and African artists, including Beauford's Man with Medallion.

To view an extraordinary photo of Untitled (Portrait of a Man) (aka Man with Medallion) as shown in the exhibition, click HERE. (This photo is on Facebook, so you may need to sign in to view it.)

 Pictures Girls Make: Portraiture will be on display through October 21, 2023.