Research Catalog

Title

Beauford Delaney letters, 1958-1963.

Author

Delaney, Beauford, 1901-1979.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Baldwin, James, 1924-1987.
• Boggs, Charles.
• Califano, Edward C.

Description

24 items (1 folder)

Summary

The Beauford Delaney Letters (1958-1963) consist of 18 autograph letters from Delaney to his friend Lynn Stone in New York City, two letters to Stone from artist Charles Boggs, a handwritten draft with typewritten copy of a fundraising letter by author James Baldwin and two letters from Edward C. Califano, director of Galerie Internationale, New York City.

Donor/Sponsor

Schomburg NEH Automated Access to Special Collections Project.

Subject

• Delaney, Beauford, 1901-1979
• Baldwin, James, 1924-1987
• Stone, Lynn M
• Van Vechten, Carl, 1880-1964
• Swanson, Howard, 1907-1978
• Facchetti, Paul
• Galerie Internationale
• African American artists
• African American artists > France > Paris
• Painters > United States
• African American painters
• African American painters > France > Paris
• Expatriate painters > France > Paris

Note

• Photographs have been separated to Photographs and Prints Division. Paintings, watercolors, and exhibition catalogs have been separated to Art and Artifacts Division.

Source (note)

• Stone, Lynn

Biography (note)

• Beauford Delaney (1901-1979) was a painter associated with the Harlem Renaissance.

Processing Action (note)

• Accessioned
• Cataloged

Call Number

Sc MG 217

OCLC

NYPW088000028-A

Author

Delaney, Beauford, 1901-1979.

Title

Beauford Delaney letters, 1958-1963.

Biography

Beauford Delaney (1901-1979) was a painter associated with the Harlem Renaissance.

Delaney was born in Knoxville, Tennessee to parents Samuel and Delia Delanney. An art teacher with whom he studied in Knoxville encouraged him to get further training in Boston, where he studied at Massachusetts Normal School, the South Boston School of Art, and the Copley Society. Arriving in New York in 1929, he began meeting and painting many of the prominent Black personalities, such as W.E.B. DuBois and W.C. Handy. As an admirer of jazz and other forms of music, he later made portraits of Duke Ellington, Ethel Waters, Louis Armstrong and Marion Anderson. Delaney exhibited in several locales in New York, and in the late 1940s he began his association with the Roko Gallery. During this period he also became acquainted with James Baldwin and Henry Miller, who would become his lifelong friends. In 1953 he left New York to visit Rome for a few months; what was planned to be a brief stop in Paris extended until his death in 1979. Delaney's work was exhibited at many galleries in Paris from the late 1960s through the early 1970s. Starting in the 1950s, his work became increasingly abstract, and art critics often commented on his unique use of light and color. Delaney was hospitalized for alcoholism and mental illness in Paris and died in 1979.

Connect to:

Finding Aid

Added Author

Baldwin, James, 1924-1987.

Boggs, Charles.

Califano, Edward C.

Research Call Number

Sc MG 217