In Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney, biographer David Leeming writes:
By 1948 Beauford was finally recognized as a member of the expressionist movement in New York. He was given a solo exhibit at the Artists Gallery on 57th Street in May. He wrote to Billy Rose in May that the 57th street show meant something special to him because it justified the support by his friends of his "terribly painful efforts to try to be articulate."
Leeming indicates that Beauford's Jazz Quartet was shown at this exhibition. He described it as "an energetic, highly colored depiction of a black jazz quartet dominated by a candy-striped piano played by a woman in an elaborate hat."
(1946) Oil on canvas
Image courtesy of Burt and Patricia Reinfrank
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, LLC, New York, NY
During a recent Internet search, I was pleased to find images of the front and back of an invitation card to Beauford's Artists' Gallery show.
Images reproduced with the permission of Jon Glovin, Fenwick Books
Fenwick Books is selling this piece of memorabilia. The blurb on the Web page provides the following information about the gallery:
The Artists' Gallery was a non-profit organization that existed from 1936-1962 in various locations. It showed a wide range of artists including Josef Albers, Lyonel Feininger, Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hoffmann, Louise Nevelson, etc. It collected no commission from the sale of works, instead relying of financial donors.
Further investigation turned up the following tidbit of information from Getty.edu re: selected dealer archives:
Artists' Gallery, New York. Founded in 1936 by Hugh Stix and directed by Federica Beer-Monti. A nonprofit organization supported by contributions, it exhibited works of artists not represented by a commercial dealer, including Josef Albers and Louis Eilshemius. Closed 1962.
The Getty Website references the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art as its information source.
Upon visiting the archive pages dedicated to the Artists' Gallery, I was only able to find mention of a copy of Henry Miller's The Amazing and Invariable Beauford Delaney among the printed materials in the collection. There may well be a catalog for Beauford's 1948 show and/or papers related to the show in the collection, but one would need to visit the Smithsonian to peruse the six boxes of archived items to find and review them.
I have not been able to find any images of the gallery's façade or interior. The space it occupied is now part of the address of the Four Seasons Hotel.
No comments:
Post a Comment