Untitled (Greenwich Village Street) up for Auction at Swann

Swann Auction Galleries will auction a magnificent oil from Beauford's New York years during its African American Art sale on October 3, 2024.

Lot 16 - Untitled (Greenwich Village Street, New York)
(circa 1945-46) Oil on linen canvas
457x546 mm; 18x21½ inches.
Signed and dated (indistinctly) in oil, lower right recto.
Signed (three times) and inscribed "181 Greene St" (twice)"
and "NY" in oil on the stretcher bars, verso.
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Swann lists the provenance for this piece as follows: acquired directly from the artist, Professor Kenneth Lash, California and Iowa; thence by descent, private collection, Washington (2006).

Beauford's biographer, David Leeming, indicates that Kenneth Lash made Beauford's June 1946 visit to Vinalhaven, Maine possible.

(According to Leeming, Beauford spent part of each summer between 1936 and 1953 with Dante Pavone in Vinalhaven.)

The current owner of the painting sent me some biographical information on Kenneth Lash. Reading it, I learned that Lash lived in New York City from 1938 to 1943. Frequenting jazz clubs, he learned of and attended after-hours sessions at trumpeter Frankie Newton’s Greenwich Village loft. 

Beauford and Newton were friends, and Beauford's Greenwich Village abode was a few blocks away from Newton's.

Lash served in the Navy from 1943-46. It is thought that Beauford created Untitled (Greenwich Village Street, New York) during this time.

There is a gap in Lash's timeline from 1955 to 1959. But a reference that Lash made to a Paris experience “some twenty years ago” in his December 1977 North American Review column entitled "Another Man's Poison: Oh Britannia! II" would seem to indicate that he was in Paris around 1957.

Lash’s wife, Jan, remembers the Delaney painting being on the wall of their home in Bolinas, California in the early-to-mid 1960s.

Even with the information provided by the current owner, we do not know exactly when Lash acquired this painting.

Untitled (Greenwich Village Street, New York) bears a striking resemblance to another Beauford Delaney oil entitled Street Scene.

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

In the Les Amis blog post entitled "Beauford's Street Scenes," I commented that I believed the landscape represented the elevated train (metro) that serves the south and southwest parts of the city of Paris.

In comparing the two works, it is easy to accept Swann's statement that Beauford "revisited" the 1945-46 painting when he created Street Scene.

The estimated sale price for Untitled (Greenwich Village Street, New York) is $250,000 - $350,000.

For information about Swann's African American Art Sale, click HERE.

Beauford at Black Art Auction's Fall Auction - Results

Black Art Auction sold two Beauford Delaney works during its Fall Auction on September 14, 2024 in St. Louis, MO.

The estimated sale price for Composition, a painting from the original du Closel collection, was $15,000 - $25,000.

Lot 78: Composition
(1961) Oil on canvas
10-5/8 x 5-1/4 inches
Signed on stretcher verso
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

It sold for $13,000.

Untitled, a gouache on paper dated March 1962, had an estimated sale price of $10,000 - $20,000.

Lot 101: Untitled
(1961) Gouache on paper (J-Annonay watermark)
29-1/4 x 20-3/4 inches
Signed and dated, March 1962
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

It sold for $18,000.

Sale prices include a 25% buyer's premium.

For more information about the results of the Fall Auction, click HERE.

Mike Berry and Beauford - Part 1

Mike C. Berry is Gallery Manager at the University of Tennessee (UT) Downtown Gallery and Artist/Owner of Mike C. Berry Studio in Knoxville, TN. I had the pleasure of meeting him in Paris last fall.

Berry has developed a unique and fascinating "relationship" with Beauford through his framing of Beauford's art for UT. He graciously provided Les Amis with an interview in which he "tells all," including how Beauford's work influences his artistic practice.

Because Berry was so generous with his responses, this interview will be presented in three parts. Find Part 1 below.

Note that all photos and content have been approved for posting by Derek Spratley, Esq., Court appointed administrator of the Beauford Delaney Estate.

Les Amis: Please remind me of circumstances under which you framed a Beauford Delaney painting for the estate for the first time.

MCB: I was assisting with the installation of an exhibition of Delaney works on the University of Tennessee campus in preparations for the Delaney symposium held on campus that year. While assisting on that exhibit I was asked by Derek L. Spratley to frame some pieces for the exhibit entitled Beauford Delaney, The Paris Years at the new Student Union Gallery in 2019.

Beauford Delaney, The Paris Years

Then, with a partnership with the School of Art at UT, we collaborate together on another exhibit entitled Beauford Delaney – Transcending Race and Time (December 4 – January 30, 2021) at the UT Downtown Gallery and then again for Beauford and Joseph Delaney – Lives in Art (February 5 – 27, 2021), also at the UT Downtown Gallery.

Beauford Delaney – Transcending Race and Time

Beauford and Joseph Delaney – Lives in Art

Les Amis: Describe how your relationship with the estate has grown since that time.

MCB: After working on three exhibitions together and framing over a hundred of Beauford’s pieces since our meeting in 2019, Derek and I have built a professional partnership and now a personal friendship that has its foundation in mutual respect and trust.

What I respect about Derek is that he approaches every matter concerning Beauford’s work with two things in mind: 1) Will it raise Beauford’s artist profile positively? and 2) Will it benefit and honor the Delaney heirs?

I am excited to continue working alongside Derek and honoring Beauford’s artistic legacy by framing and conserving his work for generations to come. I am truly lucky.

I recently learned that Derek and I have a fondness and love of donuts, however my love for them tends to show a bit more than his does. Wink! Wink!

Derek L. Spratley and Mike C. Berry

Les Amis: Is the work you do for the estate done under the auspices of UT Downtown Gallery, independently, or both?

MCB: The work I do for the Estate is performed independently through my studio and totally separate from my work at the UT Downtown Gallery.

However, when we designed and installed the two Delaney exhibits in 2020-21, the University was involved and of course there were some overlap because the responsibility of framing and exhibit design were within my purview at the UT Downtown Gallery.

Les Amis: Talk about the Beauford Delaney exhibitions that you framed for the estate in the context of the previous question.

MCB: We decided to mount an exhibition of Beauford's work directly from the estate to showcase some never-before-seen works and make them available to collectors locally and regionally.

This was very successful, with 100% of the works selling to collectors, most of whom were first time Beauford Delaney collectors.

The second show, which was the very next month, featured the two brothers exhibiting together. I have to give a big shout out to my colleague Sarah McFalls, our collection manager at the Ewing Gallery of Art & Architecture (UT School of Art), because she championed the idea of the brothers exhibiting together by asking "When in the course of time will both collections be this readily available for exhibition ever again in Knoxville?"

Remember, we had just had a successful showing of Beauford’s the month prior with 100% sales.

Sarah proposed to exhibit the brothers together since the Ewing Gallery has one of the largest collections of Joseph Delaney works. There had never been an two-person exhibition of their work in Knoxville.

Beauford and Joseph had been invited by the McClung Museum (now the McClung Museum of Natural History & Culture located on the UT campus) to exhibit together in 1970. This resulted in an exhibition including only Joseph’s works because of the difficulty of organizing and shipping Beauford’s works from France.

So, now the time was right to exhibit the brothers together. The gallery was available and the artwork was here - it just needed to be organized and brought together in one room.

I suppose we broke one of our unwritten rules at the gallery of never showing the same artist in back-to-back exhibitions, but this was one of those rare incidents that the stars aligned to create a beautiful moment.

This would not have happened without the hard work of our team: Sam Yates (retired director), Sarah McFalls, collections manager, and Eric Cagley, gallery preparator, as well as the generosity and grace of Derek Spratley, the Court appointed administrator of the Beauford Delaney Estate.

Beauford at Black Art Auction's Fall Auction

Two Beauford Delaney works are being put up for auction during Black Art Auction's Fall Auction on September 14, 2024 in St. Louis, MO.

Composition (1961) is a painting from the original du Closel collection of Beauford's work.

Lot 78: Composition
(1961) Oil on canvas
10-5/8 x 5-1/4 inches
Signed on stretcher verso
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

There is no indication as to when in 1961 Beauford might have painted Composition. That year was both productive and traumatic for him.

In Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney, biographer David Leeming talks of group shows in London and Paris and letters that Beauford wrote to friends indicating his troubled state of mind during the first part of the year. He then writes extensively about Beauford's July trip to Greece and his two suicide attempts in that country, followed by the love and care friends extended to him once he returned to Paris in late August.

At the end of this section of the book, readers learn that "Beauford's sixtieth birthday on December 30, 1961 was spent a long way from home in a quiet room with no friends and, under doctor's orders, no possibility of communicating with them."

Untitled is a gouache on paper dated March 1962.

Lot 101: Untitled
(1961) Gouache on paper (J-Annonay watermark)
29-1/4 x 20-3/4 inches
Signed and dated, March 1962
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

By this time, Beauford had moved to the rue Vercingétorix studio that was organized for him by Mme du Closel.

Leeming writes that "Being back in Montparnasse suited Beauford," and describes Beauford's pleasure at being able to meet friends on the street while walking around the neighborhood. He says that Beauford's health improved, which contributed to his gradual return to consuming alcohol. This, in turn, negated the effects of his medication.

Despite the warning he received from his psychiatrist, Beauford continued to drink during the spring of 1962 and relapsed into a psychotic state in early May.

The estimated sale price of Composition is $15,000 - $25,000.

The estimated sale price of Untitled is $10,000 - $20,000.

For information about the Fall Auction, click HERE.