About Beauford Delaney

  • Biography

    Born in 1901, Beauford Delaney, an expatriate African-American painter, spent his childhood and teen years in Knoxville, Tennessee. He studied at the Massachusetts Normal School in Boston, in 1924, moving to Harlem and other New York City locations in 1929. In 1953, he went permanently to live in France, mainly Paris. He died there on March 25, 1979.

    Among many intellectuals Delaney knew as a kindred soul, friend and mentor, were James Baldwin, then a young author, who became a lifelong friend. Writer Henry Miller introduced many people to Delaney in his essay The Amazing and Invariable Beauford Delaney.

    Early critics of Delaney's paintings lauded his wit and eye, yet tended to pigeon-hole h...

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