The groundbreaking Paris Noir exhibition opened at the Centre Pompidou museum on March 19, 2025.
And Beauford's Street Scene, 1968 is the first thing people see when they walk into the show!
Artwork © Estate of Beauford Delaney
By permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Photo © Entrée to Black Paris
The full title of the exhibition is Paris Noir: Circulations artistiques et luttes anticoloniales 1950-2000.
The museum describes it as follows:
From the creation of the Présence Africaine review to that of Revue noire, “Black Paris” retraces the presence and influence of Black artists in France from the 1950s to 2000. The exhibition celebrates 150 artists coming from Africa, the Americas and the Caribbean, whose works have often never been displayed in France before.
While Beauford's work has been shown in group shows in Paris many times before, those occasions pale in comparison to this one.
Fourteen (14) of his best oils are on display in multiple sections of Paris Noir, including the dazzling 1965 self-portrait held by the Whitney Museum of American Art.
This painting, which is my favorite work in the entire show, is hung next to one of two portraits of James Baldwin in Room 2.
Artwork © Estate of Beauford Delaney
By permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Photo © Entrée to Black Paris
One of Beauford's portraits of an older James Baldwin hangs on the wall behind Street Scene, 1968 in Room 2 and seemingly gazes at the two portraits across the room.
(1967) Oil on canvas
Artwork © Estate of Beauford Delaney
By permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Photo © Entrée to Black Paris
The Centre Pompidou is displaying its large Beauford Delaney abstract in the "Le saut dans l'abstraction" section, next to two of Beauford's yellow abstractions.
(1967) Oil on canvas
Artworks © Estate of Beauford Delaney
By permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Photo © Entrée to Black Paris
© Entrée to Black Paris
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
The last time the museum showed this work was in 2013, when it hung in the Multiple Modernities 1905-1970 exhibition.
(1957) Oil on canvas
© Discover Paris!
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts has loaned its Portrait of Marian Anderson to the show.
(1965) Oil and egg tempera emulsion on canvas
Artwork © Estate of Beauford Delaney
By permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Photo © Entrée to Black Paris
The remainder of the paintings were loaned by private collectors and the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery. They include Beauford's portrait of Ahmed Bioud, Bernard Hassell, and an unidentified young man.
Beauford shows up in Paris Noir in other ways. The Ina film clip of him being interviewed in his Clamart studio plays on the same wall where paintings by his friends Ed Clark, Herb Gentry, and Larry Potter hang.
R to L: Ed Clark, Herb Gentry, and Larry Potter
© Entrée to Black Paris
Reproductions of the invitation card for his monographic show at the Galerie Lambert in Paris are on display on the wall in the Paris Dakar Lagos section of the show.
© Entrée to Black Paris
© Entrée to Black Paris
And you can catch a couple of glimpses of him in a video clip from "Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris 1970," during which James Baldwin "holds court" in Beauford's rue Vercingétorix studio.
from the BBC's "Meeting the Man"
© Entrée to Black Paris
© Entrée to Black Paris
Outside the exhibition itself, UTK Professor Mary Campbell spoke about the Beauford-Baldwin friendship during the first day of the exhibition colloquium. She spoke passionately about her view of how Baldwin inspired Beauford's art, focusing on the portrait of Baldwin that Beauford named Dark Rapture.
© Entrée to Black Paris
On Day 2 of the colloquium, I spoke about the two Beauford Delaney walking tours that I created for Entrée to Black Paris during a presentation called "Paris Places and Spaces." I cited the 2016 Resonance of Form and Vibration of Color exhibition in Paris as the catalyst for the first tour and the 2024 UTLibraries visit to Paris in preparation for the exhibition they are preparing for the inauguration of the Beauford Delaney Papers as the catalyst for the second one.
© Entrée to Black Paris
For many reasons, Paris Noir is an exhibition that should not be missed.
In my book, getting "up close and personal" with several brilliant Beauford Delaney paintings is one of the top three!
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