Breakin' for Summer

While Parisians are slowly returning to the city from their summer holidays, Paris is in a lull between the 2024 Summer Olympic games that ended on August 11 and the Paralympic Games that will begin in August 28.

Les Amis is taking a couple of weeks off to rest and rejuvenate in conjunction with the "inter-Olympic pause."

Look for a new blog post before mid-September.

In the interim, we hope the rest of your summer is as vibrant as the work shown below!

Garden Abstraction
(1963) Gouache on paper
signed, inscribed and dated 'Beauford Delaney July 28, 1963 Paris' (lower left);
signed again 'Beauford Delaney' (on the reverse)
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Beauford's Street Scenes

People who are familiar with work from Beauford's New York years undoubtedly know about his Greene Street paintings.

Beauford created many additional works that are called "Street Scene" or something similar. I thought it would be fun to display them together in this blog posts.

All but one of the works represented below were created well before Beauford left NYC for Paris in 1953.

Untitled, circa 1945
Watercolor on paper
15 1/2 x 22 1/2 inches
Purchased with funds provided by the KMA’s Collectors Circle², 2014
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator 

For me, the paintings entitled Greenwich Village (1946) and Twilight Street (1946) have striking similarities regarding Beauford's representation of the street lamps, moon, and pavement.

 

Greenwich Village
(1945) Oil on canvas
Image by Manu Sasoonian, from Amazing Grace
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
 

Twilight Street
(1946) Oil and mixed media on masonite
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Untitled (Village Street Scene)
(1948) Oil on canvas
Signed and dated in oil, lower left.
Image from Swann Auction Galleries Web site
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Street Scene

(1951) Oil on canvas

© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator 

Beauford sailed to Paris in August 1953.  While he may have created the pastel work on paper shown in the image below after his arrival, I believe it is more likely that he painted this before he left New York.

Street Scene
Beauford Delaney
(1953) Pastel on paper
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

The oil painting below was created 15 years after Beauford arrived in Paris. I believe it represents the elevated train (metro) that serves the south and southwest parts of the city.

Street Scene
(1968) Oil on canvas
Signed and dated "BEAUFORD DELANEY 1968" lower right
© Estate of Beauford Delaney,
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator 

Educating Children about Beauford

In perusing the articles that Les Amis has published over the years, I came across a post on how museums use Beauford's art to reach out to children.

This inspired me to do a Google search on "Beauford Delaney" and "children." In doing so, I found three sites that are meant to serve as references for kids who want to learn about him.

Britannica Kids has a brief article that is identified as being appropriate for students in Grades 6-8. The 1953 B&W Carl Van Vechten photo portrait of Beauford accompanies this listing.

Portrait of Beauford Delaney
© Carl van Vechten 1953
Public domain

Kiddle Encyclopedia posted a much more extensive article about Beauford in December 2023. A table of "Quick Facts," illustrated by the Van Vechten portrait, appears at the top right of the Web page.

A table of contents appears at the left, beneath the introductory paragraph. It contains links to the various sections of the article - Biography (which is subdivided into "Early Life," "New York City, USA," "Paris, France," and "Mental Deterioriation"), Legacy, and The Beauford Delaney burial site.

Kiddle also has a Web page about Beauford's brother, Joseph, as well as the Knoxville Museum of Art.

The most colorful site on YouTube. In a video called "Kids Art Class - Draw a street scene," an educator teaches students from Wren Avenue Elementary about Beauford before explaining the concept of perspective through the use of Beauford's Untitled (Village Street Scene) (1948). 

 

Untitled (Village Street Scene)
(1948) Oil on canvas
Image from Swann Auction Galleries Web site
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

To visit these Websites, click on the links below:

Britannica Kids

Kiddle Encyclopedia

Kids Art Class - Draw a street scene

The James Baldwin Centennial

August 2, 2024 was the 100th anniversary of James Baldwin's birth.

Les Amis joins individuals and organizations on both sides of the Atlantic in commemorating this date by acknowledging the profound impact that Beauford's love and influence had on the shaping of the one of the 20th century's most formidable literary giants.

Baldwin's name appears dozens of times in this blog, and multiple images of portraits Beauford created of him are also displayed here.

Following are images of (perhaps) lesser known portraits of his dear friend.

Portrait of James Baldwin
(1945) Pastel on paper
© Estate of Beauford Delaney,
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Image - Screenshot from YouTube video
Judd Tully - Beauford and Joseph Delaney, Their Life and Art

James Baldwin
(1966) oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Portrait of James Baldwin
(1966) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

James Baldwin
(1967) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney,
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Portrait of James Baldwin
(1971) Oil on canvas
Bequest of James Baldwin
Image courtesy of Clark Atlanta University Art Galleries
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

For information about the James Baldwin Centennial Festival, which will be held in Paris from September 9-13, 2024, click HERE.