Summertime ...

... and the livin' is easy.

Les Amis de Beauford Delaney is taking a summertime break to do some "easy living" over the next few weeks.

As you navigate the heat of the season, I hope you enjoy these rich, warm images of several of Beauford's yellow abstract works and this beautiful rendition of the song "Summertime" by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.

Untitled (Abstraction)
(1964) Oil on linen canvas
National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C.
Photo courtesy of the National Museum of African American History and Culture
© Estate of Beauford Delaney,
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

 

 

Untitled
(1967) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney,
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Abstraction No. 4
(ca. 1965) Oil on canvas
signed 'Beauford Delaney' (upper right)
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

 

 

Untitled
(1961) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Beauford and Elwood Peterson

Elwood Peterson lived in Paris for over 15 years, arriving two to three years before Beauford set sail for France in 1953. A classical singer who used GI Bill benefits to train at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, he met Beauford in 1956 through an introduction by their mutual friend, composer Howard Swanson.

Negro Spirituals - promotional graphic
Fair use claim

Biographer David Leeming mentions Peterson several times in Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney. Several elements in the Beauford Delaney archive now held by the University of Tennessee Knoxville illuminate the relationship between the two men.

Leeming states that Beauford was greatly pleased by a concert in which Peterson performed in Fall/Winter 1962. The archive contains a note handwritten by Beauford, which says "Thursday Elwood Howard" and "concert du next week negro. Beauford wrote "Oct 13," "Dec am centre," and the words "apre [sic] midi" (afternoon) and "evening" on this note, as well as other unrelated information.

The archive also includes Peterson's handwritten invitation to Beauford to "come to the Center to see our opera" and an accompanying envelope postmarked November 21, 1962. In the invitation, Peterson notes that "Howard" (Swanson) has seen the opera and will attend the performance a second time and mentions that he has not yet been able to visit Beauford in his new home (the studio on rue Vercingétorix). He says he'll try to send Beauford a formal invitation to the event.

Handwritten invitation to opera - detail
Photo by Les Amis de Beauford Delaney

I found the following quotation in a card Peterson sent to Beauford, most likely during the Christmas season of 1966*:

"You were off galavanting again when I was "called" to teach in California ....

"I pray all is well with you and trust that all works so that we may see each other again next summer. I mean yet to have a Beauford Delaney on my wall!"

In 1967, Beauford painted a portrait of Peterson and gave it to his subject.

Elwood Peterson
(1967) Oil on canvas
© The Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Photo from Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney

According to Leeming, Peterson expressed surprise at the youthful countenance Beauford bestowed on him in the work, to which Beauford replied:

"... when you sing you become eighteen again, and that's what I wanted to capture."

I have not read any correspondence that Beauford addressed to Peterson. But it is apparent from Peterson's notes and letters to Beauford that he held Beauford in high esteem and felt close to him. For several of the writings held in the archive, he used the closing salutation "Bless you" or "Love."

*In September 1966, Jet Magazine reported that Peterson left Paris to accept a position at Pomona College in Claremont, California.

Beauford Featured in Scalawag Magazine

"Through journalism and storytelling, Scalawag works in solidarity with oppressed communities in the South to disrupt and shift the narratives that keep power and wealth in the hands of the few. Collectively, we pursue a more liberated South."

This is the mission statement of Scalawag Magazine, a Black-led, women run, nonprofit media outlet in Durham, NC that publishes works focused on Southern politics and culture. Launched through a Kickstarter campaign in 2015, its founders intend to challenge the status quo of the South through community-based journalism. One of the four values listed on its "About" page is "Radical imagination and creativity," which is a perfect descriptor for Beauford's art.

On June 29, 2022, Scalawag published a feature article about Beauford called "Out of the Shadows: The Queer Life of Artist Beauford Delaney." It was written by Tyra A. Seals, the independent research assistant at the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery who conducted archival research and developed the most updated existing chronology about Beauford Delaney for the MRG exhibition entitled Be Your Wonderful Self: The Portraits of Beauford Delaney.

Seals interviewed me for this article, and I was pleased to contribute the "before and after" photos of Beauford's grave that illustrate it.

Read the article HERE.

Beauford and Ted Joans

Surrealist poet and painter Ted Joans was acquainted with Beauford and wrote about him at least twice.

Where and when they first met, I do not know. I am aware of three encounters in Paris.

Joans was born in Cairo, Illinois and grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana and Louisville, Kentucky. After completing a Bachelor of Arts degree at Indiana University, he moved to NYC in 1951 and became involved with the Beat Generation in Greenwich Village. Beauford was living in Greenwich Village at that time and had already become somewhat of a local celebrity, so it is possible that the two men met there.

Joans began traveling to Paris in 1960 and visited the city many times during the following two decades. He wrote about Beauford after having seen him at the solo exhibition of Beauford's works organized by Darthea Speyer in February 1973.

Beauford and Darthea

Invitation card for 1973 exhibit at Galerie Darthea Speyer

Courtesy of Galerie Darthea Speyer

In Volume 23, No. 3 of the Johnson Publishing Company's Black World (January 1974), Joans speaks with rapture about Beauford's work:

...one has nothing to fear from the paintings of Beauford Delaney but the truth. Some of that truth was exhibited at the Galerie Darthea Speyer, 6 Rue Jacques Callot on the Left Bank (Paris) from Feb. 6 to May 2. The paintings of Mr. Delaney were at last being shown at an important international gallery after years of being almost totally ignored by them, in spite of Mr. Delaney being one of the living legends of American art.

Beauford Delaney's oils are painted natural as he is, giving off charming light that causes on to be happy before the painting. His work stimulates the human soul, like a Billie Holiday recording or a Louis Armstrong trumpet solo, the true magic of America: Black Magic!

The magazine published a photo taken at the exhibition, in which is Beauford sitting in a chair with his left arm outstretched, while Joans and jazz saxaphonist Ornette Coleman stand above him. The caption in the magazine indicates that Coleman purchased one of Beauford's oils, while Joans purchased a drawing.

L to R: Beauford (seated), Ornette Coleman, and Ted Joans

Photographer unknown*

In 1975, photographer Marion Kalter captured Beauford and Ted Joans on film in Beauford's studio on rue Vercingétorix.  

Ted Joans and Beauford Delaney at rue Vercingétorix studio in 1975
© Marion Kalter

In 1976, Joans visited Beauford at Sainte-Anne's Hospital. As a result, he was inspired to write a poem called "In Thursday Sane," which he signed and dated "16 dec 76 Paris Juedi [sic] 2:30 PM." With his permission, it was published by Swan Scythe Press in 2001.

Book cover - Lost and Found: "In Thursday Sane"

Sandra McPherson discovered the poem when found a copy of Amos Tutuola’s novel The Palm-Wine Drinkard in a used bookshop in Sacramento, CA in 1999. Joans had once owned the book, where he wrote "In Thursday Sane" in the back pages. Lost and Found: "In Thursday Sane" publishes not only the 33-line verse, but also images of the original handwritten poem. It also includes an image of a sketch by Joans (reproduced on the book cover), which presumably depicts him and Beauford.

Joans refers to Beauford and Beauford's brother Joseph in the poem - "One of the dark Delaney brothers - Painters both - one here other there".

He mentions the hospital's "Pinel Salle" twice (this pavilion still exists at Sainte-Anne's) and describes Beauford as being a "gray beard man of bright paintings."

He ends the poem by expressing his heart's disbelief that Beauford is "crazy." 

 

*The use of this low-resolution image is contended to be a fair use, since it is used solely for educational purposes in a not-for-profit blog, is necessary for cultural and historical purposes, and is not believed to decrease the material value of the copyright by its use here. The image is of inherently lower quality than the original, reducing the risk of competitiveness and therefore the effects of this copy on the market for or value of versions held by the owner of the copyright. Our usage does not limit the copyright owner's rights to sell the image in any way.