Birthplace of "The Saints"

Biographer David Leeming reports in Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney that when they lived in NYC, Beauford and his brother, Joseph, saw each other at Cloyd Boykin's Primitive African Art Center.

He says that "Joe and Beauford eventually modeled and taught drawing classes there and met two painters, Ellis Wilson and [Palmer] Hayden, who became their lifelong close friends, forming with them a group they all referred to as "The Saints."

Palmer C. Hayden and Beauford Delaney at Washington Square, NYC (1930s)
Photo from the National Archives, Harmon Collection

Joseph Delaney at the first annual Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibition (1931)
Photo from the Beck Cultural Exchange Center, Knoxville, TN
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Click HERE to see images of Ellis Wilson.

I have not been able to find images of Cloyd Boykin.

I decided to research the school to see if I could find out more about it, beginning with where it was located.

I found an image of a letter written by Boykin to W.E.B. DuBois whose letterhead presents "The Primitive Art Center" and "Afro-American Museum" as subheaders under the words "Boykins' School of Art and Adjuncts." The letter is dated October 11, 1930 and indicates the address of the center as 43-45, Grove Street, New York City. Note the sign in the window in the image below.

45 Grove Street, Manhattan
Berenice Abbott
October 1935
Public domain

From another source, I learned that Boykin ran an arts and crafts shop on Grove Street in 1928 and 1929 (exact address not mentioned) and that he opened the school in 1929/1930. This means that the school would have been fairly new when Beauford and Joseph frequented it, given that Beauford moved to NYC in November 1929 and Joseph moved there in 1930.

The building was known as the Old Governor's Mansion and the Whittemore Mansion. It has an incredible history that indirectly links it with the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. It is still standing, and it looks pretty much the same now as it did in the 1930s.

Click HERE to read the story about the assassination and see a recent image of the property.

Boykin opened a second location for the school and the Primitive African Art Center at the New York Urban League, 202–206 West 136th Street in Harlem in July 1932.

Partial view of façade of NY Urban League
Screenshot from YouTube video
National Urban League and NYC Tenants (1911)
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The Grove Street address remained functional until at least November 1932, when a problem with space at the NY Urban League facility caused the Center's autumm exhibition as well as some art classes to be held at this address.