Research Catalog

Details

Additional authors

1. Baldwin, James, 1924-1987.
2. Delaney, Joseph, 1904-1991.
3. Boggs, Charles.
4. Calcagno, Lawrence, 1913-1993.
5. Calloway, Cab, 1907-1994.
6. De Kooning, Elaine.
7. Hayden, Palmer.
8. Koenig, John-Franklin, 1924-1987.
9. Hirschfeld, Al.
10. Jones, James, 1921-1977.
11. Miller, Henry, 1891-1980.
12. Long, Richard A., 1927-2013.
13. Speyer, Dathea.
14. Stone, Lynn M.

Description

1. 2 lin. ft.

Summary

1. The Beauford Delaney Collection consists of correspondence with colleagues, friends, gallery owners, and family members as well a printed material documenting Delaney's life in Paris. Biographical information is provided in statements Delaney authored, articles prepared by others for catalogs, and his obituary. Among the many friends, colleagues and art collectors with whom he maintained an active correspondence are James Baldwin (included with an essay he wrote for an introduction to a catalog for an exhibition of Delaney's art at Paris' Galerie Lambert in 1964). Other correspondents include artists Charles Boggs, Al Hirschfeld, John Franklin Koenig, and Ellis Wilson, authors James Jones and Henry Miller (who was also a water colorist), art historian Richard A. Long, and his friend Lynn Stone. Additional artists, painters, writers, gallery owners and musicians who corresponded with Delaney include Lawrence Calcagno, Cab Calloway, Elaine DeKooning, Palmer C. Hayden, and Darthea Speyer.

Subject

1. African American artists
2. Expatriate painters
3. African American painters
4. African American artists > France > Paris
5. Painting, American > 20th century > Exhibitions
6. Expatriate painters > France > Paris
7. Postcards
8. Painting > United States
9. Artists > United States
10. Painters > France > Paris
11. Announcements
12. Delaney, Beauford, 1901-1979
13. African American painters > France > Paris

Genre/Form

1. Announcements.
2. Postcards.

Call number

1. Sc MG 59

Note

1. Paintings and art catalogs transferred to Art and Artifact Division.
2. Photographs transferred to Photographs and Prints Division.

Source (note)

1. Daniel Richards

Biography (note)

1. Beauford Delaney was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, the third child of the Reverend Samuel Delaney and Delia Johnson Delaney. He attended the Knoxville Colored School and later studied art with an elderly Knoxville artist. In 1924 Delaney went to Boston where he studied at the Massachusetts Normal School and the South Boston School of Art; he also attended evening classes at the Copley Society.

Processing action (note)

1. Accessioned
2. Cataloged

Author

1. Delaney, Beauford, 1901-1979.

Title

1. Beauford Delaney collection, 1964-1979.

Biography

1. Beauford Delaney was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, the third child of the Reverend Samuel Delaney and Delia Johnson Delaney. He attended the Knoxville Colored School and later studied art with an elderly Knoxville artist. In 1924 Delaney went to Boston where he studied at the Massachusetts Normal School and the South Boston School of Art; he also attended evening classes at the Copley Society.
2. Delaney went to New York in 1929, settling at first in Harlem. He painted society women and professional dancers at Billy Pierce's dancing school on West 46th Street which gained him a reputation as a portraitist. His first one-man show which consisted of five pastels and ten charcoal drawings was at the 135th Street Branch Library of the New York Public Library in 1930. During the same year three of his portraits were included in a group show at the Whitney Studio Galleries, the predecessor of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Delaney also taught part-time at a progressive school in Greenwich Village.
3. By the late 1940s Beauford Delaney had become a significant figure on the art scene. He illustrated "Unsung Americans Sung," (1944) a book of black musical tributes edited by W.C. Handy, he had had a series of one-man shows in New York and Washington, D.C. and had exhibited in group shows in a number of other cities. In 1945 he showed his first series of portraits of writers Henry Miller and James Baldwin. In 1949 he began an association with the Roko Gallery in New York where he exhibited annually until 1953.
4. In 1953 Delaney left New York with the intention of settling in Rome but a visit to Paris turned into a permanent stay. He had two studios in Paris, the first in the suburbs of Clamart and the other in the Rue Vincingetorix. In Paris Delaney exhibited in one-man and group shows at the Gallerie Paul Fachetti (1960), the Centre Culturel Americain (1961 and 1972), the Galerie Lambert (1964), the Musee Galleira (1967) and the Galerie Darthea Speyer (1973) among other places. The latter was a major showing of a selection of his work from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s and the catalog contained tributes by James Jones, James Baldwin and Georgia O'Keefe. Delaney also exhibited in England, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the United States. The Paris years saw the creation of several masterpieces including portraits of singer Marian Anderson and writer Jean Genet. During this period he also created a series of interiors and studies in watercolor.
5. Some time in the late 1970s Beauford Delaney became mentally ill. He was institutionalized and died on March 26, 1979 at St. Ann's Hospital in Paris. Delaney's last one-man show in the United States was at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1978, inaugurating that museum's Black Masters Series. Delaney's work is in several private collections and in the collections of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture - The New York Public Library, The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Newark Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Connect to:

1. Finding Aid

Added author

1. Baldwin, James, 1924-1987.
2. Delaney, Joseph, 1904-1991.
3. Boggs, Charles.
4. Calcagno, Lawrence, 1913-1993.
5. Calloway, Cab, 1907-1994.
6. De Kooning, Elaine.
7. Hayden, Palmer.
8. Koenig, John-Franklin, 1924-1987.
9. Hirschfeld, Al.
10. Jones, James, 1921-1977.
11. Miller, Henry, 1891-1980.
12. Long, Richard A., 1927-2013.
13. Speyer, Dathea.
14. Stone, Lynn M.

Research call number

1. Sc MG 59