Lot 192: Beauford Delaney Abstract Watercolor, 1958, plus 4 Catalog & Reference Books

Beauford Delaney (American/Tennessee, 1901-1979) watercolor on paper gestural abstract painting in yellow, purple, and orange that blend and bleed into one another, with areas of exposed paper visible throughout. Signed “Beauford Delaney,” inscribed “Clamart” (a suburb of Paris where Delaney lived) and dated 1958 in black pen, lower right. Floated in a modern giltwood frame with cream mat. Sheet: 25″ H x 18 3/4″ W. Frame: 31″ H x 24 3/4″ W. Lot includes four Beaufod Delaney exhibition catalogs: Richard J. Powell, BEAFORD DELANEY: THE COLOR YELLOW (Atlanta: High Museum of Art, 2002); BEAUFORD DELANEY: RESONANCE OF FORM AND VIBRATION OF COLOR (Paris: Les Amis de Beauford Delaney, Wells International Foundation, & Columbia Global Center, 2016); BEAUFORD DELANEY AND JAMES BALDWIN: THROUGH THE UNUSAL DOOR, ed. Stephen C. Wicks (Knoxville, TN: Knoxville Museum of Art, 2020), with trifold exhibition brochure and single-sheet timeline detailing Baldwin and Delaney’s relationship; and Mary Campbell, BE YOUR WONDERFUL SELF: THE PORTAITS OF BEAUFORD DELANEY (New York: Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 2022). Biographical note: Modernist artist Beauford Delaney was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. An apprentice to artist Lloyd Branson, Delaney was encouraged by his mentor to study art in Boston. In 1929 he traveled to New York and established himself as a prominent artist of the Harlem Renaissance. There he gained the attention and admiration of well-known writers and artists such as James Baldwin, Georgia O’Keefe, Alfred Stieglitz, and many others. Delaney experimented throughout his career with a wide variety of styles, including his personal brands of realism, fauvism, post-impressionism, and abstract expressionism. His departure from New York to Paris in 1953 also marked his transition from figurative compositions to abstractions with a focus on color and light. In 1978, the year before he died, the Studio Museum in Harlem initiated its Black Master series with a retrospective of his work. His paintings can be found in the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago; the National Portrait Gallery, the Smithsonian Institution, and other major museums.

PROVENANCE: The Estate of John Z. C. Thomas, Knoxville, TN.

CONDITION: Sheet with central, vertical creases extending from lower to upper edges plus even toning and negligible buckling, especially along upper edge. Faint creasing and handling wear to edges plus three minor tears, largest to center right edge, 1/4″ L. With crease to lower left corner and missing extreme tip of lower right corner.