In Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney, biographer David Leeming tells us that Beauford held "Philosophy of Art" seminars for several months at his Greene Street studio in Greenwich Village.
Beauford in his Greene Street studio, New York City, 1944
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
He describes the first seminar in great detail, painting the scene of a candle-lit room filled with portraits of famous African Americans where guests listened to Beauford lecture on "The Enigma of Art," learn how to sketch with charcoal (a live model was present), and enjoy entertainment.
He then informs us that several "hostesses" served tea and caviar to attendees.
I was intrigued by the idea that Beauford would have the means to offer caviar at an event and curious about the hostesses who served it.
Leeming mentioned seven women who served in this role. I was able to find information about three of them.
Nell Occomy Becker was the youngest of three sisters born to Walter Calvert Occomy and Nellie White Occomy in Providence, RI. She graduated with a teaching degree from the State Normal School (now Rhode Island College), and moved to NYC because of the discriminatory practices of Providence public schools. There, she taught junior high school and enrolled in a post-graduate program at the Teachers’ College.
Nell Occomy Becker
Source of original image:
Opportunity: Journal of Negro Life, November 1936, p. 347.
Fair use claim
In the 1930s, Occomy developed skills as an arts and culture writer. She wrote profiles of Black playwrights and served as editor-in-chief of The Krinon, the publication for the Black women educator sorority, Phi Delta Kappa.
Another hostess, Mrs. Gertrude Robinson, was a charter member of Phi Delta Kappa and served as First Supreme Anti-Basileus, then Supreme Basileus at various times from the 1920s - 1940s.
Hostess Dorothy Gates is mentioned several times in Amazing Grace. She and Beauford met through their mutual connection with Alfred Stieglitz, Dorothy Norman, and Georgia O'Keeffe, and they became quite close. Her death in 1956 disturbed him greatly.
While Leeming does not provide precise dates for the months that Beauford hosted the seminars, I infer from his text that they took place during 1949, and perhaps, early 1950.
