Beauford Delaney (African American 1901-1979) Abstraction

Beauford Delaney (African American, 1901-1979) Abstraction Signed and dated "Beauford Delaney 1969" l. r., identified on a label from Galerie Darthea Speyer, Paris, affixed to the backing. Gouache on paper, sight size 25 3/4 x 19 1/2 in. (65.4 x 49.5 cm), framed. Condition: Not examined out of frame. N.B. While Beauford Delaney is known today as a Harlem Renaissance artist and African American expatriate, he began his artistic training in Boston. Between 1923 and 1929, he attended the Massachusetts Normal Art School (now Massachusetts College of Art and Design), Copley Society, and the South Boston School of Art. (1) From 1929 to 1953, Delaney worked in New York where he met the beacons of the Harlem Renaissance movement such as W.E. B. DuBois, Louis Armstrong, and James Baldwin. Amidst the growing racial tensions and McCarthyism of the early 1950s, Paris began to look attractive to Delaney, and in 1953, he moved to Montparnasse where he settled permanently. The present work was created a year after Darthea Speyer opened her gallery on rue Jacques Callot in Paris. As a cultural attaché for the United States Information Services, she organized a show of American artists at the Musee National D'Art Moderne in 1953, which laid the groundwork for the acceptance of American Post War art and expatriate artists in Paris. (2) (1) Aberjhani, and Sandra L. West. 2003. Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. New York: Facts On File, Inc., p. 84. (2) Galerie Darthea Speyer recor