Knoxville’s Native Son: Recognizing Beauford Delaney

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During his lifetime, and for most of the three and a half decades since his death, the painter Beauford Delaney has been almost entirely unknown in his hometown. (To be fair, he was mostly unknown anywhere, even though he was one of only a handful of notable black American modernist painters and maintained long friendships with James Baldwin, Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keefe, and many other important figures of mid-20th-century art and literature.)

Delaney’s life was hard—he was black, gay, and poor, and he struggled with mental illness and alcoholism. But he produced a large and impressive body of work during his most productive years, from the 1930s through the ’60s, and developed a distinctive, personal style. His work alternated between increasingly stylized figure painting, portraits, and cityscapes and almost pure abstraction, all of it marked by layers of warm colors and textures.

Beauford Delaney, Scattered Light (1964), oil on canvas. Courtesy of the Knoxville Museum of Art.

Beauford Delaney, Scattered Light (1964), oil on canvas. Courtesy of the Knoxville Museum of Art.

Delaney died in Paris in 1979, at the age of 78, at St. Anne’s Hospital for the Insane. He was buried in an unmarked grave. By the early ’90s, though, his work was being shown again at galleries in Paris and New York, and critics were championing him as a great lost American artist. (A tombstone was placed on his grave in 2010; it specifically noted his birthplace.) One group in Paris, in particular, has been instrumental in preserving Delaney’s legacy in the 21st century; Les Amis de Beauford Delaney staged an exhibit of his work there in February and March. Local experts like Jack Neely and Knoxville Museum of Art curator Stephen Wicks have recognized Delaney’s work and reputation for years, but that’s not translated to widespread acknowledgment of his significance.

That might be changing, though. KMA, the Beck Cultural Exchange Center, and the East Tennessee History Center have undertaken a long-term effort to promote Delaney’s work and legacy—an effort that might eventually include a full-scale Knoxville exhibit of Delaney’s work. Wicks and Reneé Kesler, president of the Beck Center, will discuss Delaney and plans for the Beauford Delaney Project at the Beck Center on Thursday, June 2, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. It’s free and open to the public.

“Beauford Delaney is by far the most important artist Knoxville produced in the 20th century, at least in terms of national and international reputation,” Kesler says in a press release. “He was friends with and beloved by the most respected cultural and intellectual figures of his age. He was a close friend and mentor to novelist, playwright, and social critic James Baldwin. Georgia O’Keeffe, who rarely did portraits, painted Beauford’s. He was the subject of an affectionate essay by great American writer Henry Miller. Yet many people in Knoxville are not familiar with this native son and his distinguished legacy. We hope the Beauford Delaney Project will change that.”

Senior Editor Matthew Everett manages the Knoxville Mercury's arts & entertainment section, including the comprehensive calendar section—Knoxville’s go-to guide for everything worth doing in the area. You can reach Matthew at matthew@knoxmercury.com.

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