Painting Is a Continuous Flow

July is BIPOC Mental Health Month (formerly known as Minority Mental Health Month).

In thinking about this, I turned to David Leeming's Amazing Grace: A Biography of Beauford Delaney to search for the passage where Leeming describes writings assigned to Beauford by his psychiatrist, Dr. Gaston Ferdière.

Among the quotes in this passage, I found the following one to be particularly poignant:

"Wherever one is, painting is a continuous flow and includes its own sources..."

Below is a selection of Beauford's abstract work that, through fluid lines and swirls, represents this flow across the decades that he lived in Paris.

Untitled
(1956) Inks on paper
45 x 33.5 cm; 17.7" x 13.2"
Private collection
© Estate of Beauford Delaney,
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Untitled
(1959) Oil on canvas
144.5 x 95.5 cm; 56.9" x 37.6"
© Estate of Beauford Delaney,
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Embrun
(1963) Watercolor on wove paper
Signed and dated "July 19, 1963" in ink, lower right
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Untitled (Abstract Composition)
(1965) Watercolor on wove paper
Signed, dated and inscribed "avec amour" in ink.
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Untitled
(1970) Gouache
© Artistes sans Frontières/Douglas Petrovic, 2004
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Untitled
(1970) Mixed media on cardboard
Private collection
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator