Four Beauford Delaney Works on Paper to Be Auctioned

Four delightful works on paper created by Beauford will be auctioned during the Tajan Art Après-Guerre et Contemporain sale on July 1, 2020.

Three of the works are dated 1968 and two are annotated to indicate that Beauford created them during a visit to the south of France.

Untitled
(1968) Gouache on paper
Private collection
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Portrait of Bernard Hassell
(1968) Gouache on paper
Private collection
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Untitled
Watercolor on paper
Private collection
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Untitled
(1968) Gouache on paper
Private collection
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
In Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney, biographer David Leeming indicates that the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a "disastrous effect" on Beauford's mental state and that Bernard Hassell found him wandering around Paris during the 1968 riots that took place in the French capital. He took Beauford on an extended trip to the south of France, where they stayed in Avignon, in the mountains, and at Bernard's home near Toulon.

Estimated sale prices for these works range from 1500€ to 6000€.

For more information about the auction, click HERE (Website in French).

Beauford in 79 Minutes

After a splendid opening in February and record visitation over a period of five weeks, the Knoxville Museum of Art's exquisite exhibition entitled Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin: Through the Unusual Door was unceremoniously shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

KMA has found a creative way to keep the show top of mind. It has created a series of four YouTube videos that present various aspects of the exhibition in roughly 79 minutes.

Screenshot of KMA YouTube Video Series
Part 3 Thumbnail
Barbara W. and Bernard E. Bernstein Curator Stephen Wicks guides viewers through the entire exhibition with insightful commentary and anecdotes pertaining to Beauford's life and his relationship with Baldwin.

Part 1 of the series opens with Wicks' acknowledgment of Beauford as Knoxville's most important artist and provides an overview of the exhibition. It then presents Parts I and II of the exhibition, entitled "Portraits" and "New York," respectively.

Wicks recounts the story of James Baldwin meeting Beauford for the first time at Beauford's Greene Street studio in Greenwich Village and presents three portraits of James Baldwin that Beauford created during that period, including Dark Rapture (1941). He talks about Beauford's Auto-portrait from 1965, which was loaned to the show by the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Auto-portrait
(1965) Oil on canvas
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Wicks also explores the potential relationship between James Baldwin's story about Beauford showing him an oily puddle on a New York street, the iridescent colors in Beauford's 1944 portrait of Baldwin, and the short film called "Abstract in Concrete" by John Arvonio, to whom Beauford dedicated the 1944 Baldwin portrait.

Portrait of James Baldwin
(1944) Pastel on paper
Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Part 2 presents Part III of the exhibition, entitled "Clamart," and Part IV, entitled "The Lure of Music." It opens with Wicks relating the story of Beauford's move to the Paris suburb of Clamart as he stands by Untitled (1959), one of the paintings shown in the 2016 Paris exhibition, Resonance of Form and Vibration of Color.

Untitled
(1959) Oil on canvas
Mint Museum, Charlotte
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
He also presents Beauford's 1968 abstract portrait of Ella Fitzgerald in this video.

Portrait of Ella Fitzgerald
(1968) Oil on canvas
Permanent collection of the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah
Gift of Dr. Walter O. and Mrs. Linda J. Evans
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Part 3 opens with Wicks talking about books by James Baldwin that are on display at the exhibition. It presents Part V of the exhibition, entitled "The Call of Civil Rights," and Part VI, entitled "Transnationalism."

Among the many works presented in this video, Wicks talks about two of Beauford's Rosa Parks paintings, two iconic portraits of James Baldwin, and Beauford's portrait of Charlie Parker.

Two Women on a Bench
(1970) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Charlie Parker
(1968) Oil on canvas
Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester
Photograph by Joshua Nefsky; Courtesy of
Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Part 4 presents Part VII of the exhibition, entitled "St.-Paul-de-Vence," and Part VIII, entitled "Archival Items."

In this video, Wicks compares a very early work, dated 1922, with Yellow Cypress (1972), one of Beauford's last known paintings from Saint-Paul-de-Vence -- the town where James Baldwin established a homestead in 1970.

Yellow Cypress
(1972) Oil on canvas
Clark Atlanta University Museum, Atlanta
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
He also shares information about numerous archival sketches and photographs that provide the back story for many of the works in the exhibition.

At the end of this segment, viewers can see rare footage of Beauford being interviewed in his Clamart studio.

Through the Unusual Door was scheduled to close in May. Happily, KMA has been able to organize an extension of the exhibition through October 25, 2020.

If you liked this virtual tour, get yourself to Knoxville as soon as possible so you can see the entire show in person!

Beauford and the Color "Orange"

Beauford lived through the Knoxville Riot of 1919, which left an indelible scar on his psyche.

Were he alive today, he would be deeply disturbed by the latest in a long line of publicly discussed assaults on African-American life and liberty - the murder of George Floyd and the false accusation against Christian Cooper by Amy Cooper - and the resulting protests and unlawful looting.

He would turn to painting to work through the emotions that current events would evoke in him.

I found the following interpretation of the meaning of the color "orange" in an article written by Jennifer Bourn and published on the Bourncreative Website:

"Orange is the color of joy and creativity. Orange promotes a sense of general wellness and emotional energy that should be shared, such as compassion, passion, and warmth. Orange will help a person recover from disappointments, a wounded heart, or a blow to one’s pride."

Another Website, Empowered by Color, offers the following description of the color "orange":

"Orange offers emotional strength in difficult times. It helps us to bounce back from disappointments and despair, assisting in recovery from grief."

Today I'm sharing images of several of Beauford's works in which various shades of the color "orange" are featured or dominant. I hope they lift your spirits at this incredibly challenging time.

Abstract in Orange and Red, 1963
Gouache on wove paper
© Estate of Beauford Delaney, by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire, Court Appointed Administrator

Portrait of Geneviève Brouard
(1964) Oil on canvas
Signed on back: Beauford Delaney 1964
Image © Discover Paris!
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Untitled
(1962) Oil on canvas
Signed on back: Beauford Delaney 1962
53 Rue Vercingétorix Paris
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Image by Discover Paris!

Portrait of Irene Rose
(1944) Oil on board
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Photo courtesy of ACA Galleries, New York

Untitled [MR153], c.1954
oil on canvas
Private Collection; Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

The Greene Street Paintings

In Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney, biographer David Leeming states that

"In May [1950] one of Beauford's Greene Street paintings was seen by Henry McBride in Art News as one of the few 'bright spots' in a show at the Whitney Museum."

I presumed that the painting shown was the oil on canvas called Greene Street that Beauford created in 1950.

Untitled (Greene Street)
(1950) Oil on canvas
signed and dated lower left: B. Delaney. 1950
© Estate of Beauford Delaney, by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire, Court Appointed Administrator
Image courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery
But there are at least three additional paintings called Greene Street that predate the exhibition and might have been shown there.

Greene Street
(1940) Oil on canvas
Private collection
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Photo by André Morain from the Artsmia Web site

Greene Street
(1940) Oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Greene Street
(1946) Oil on canvas
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
During a Google search for more information about this show, I learned that the exhibition McBride saw was the 1950 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Sculpture, Watercolors and Drawings, which ran from April 1 - May 28, 1950.

1950 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Sculpture, Watercolors and Drawings
Exhibition catalog cover
Fair use claim

An online archive of the catalog shows Beauford's name and address, along with his assigned catalog number (88) in the index.

It also shows his name listed in the section entitled "Watercolors, Gouaches, and Pastels."

Beauford's listing in 1950 exhibition catalog
Fair use claim

Because all the works shown above are oils, we can be assured that none of them were displayed at the Whitney exhibition.

Unfortunately, the online archive of the catalog contains only six images of works, none of which represent Beauford's Greene Street.

We may never know how many paintings and works on paper of this street exist!