Hidden Treasures: Beauford and Joseph Delaney of Knoxville, Tennessee

Sandra C. Walker, The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Visual Resources Association Bulletin, Volume 24, Number 1 (Spring 1997)

When Knoxville, Tennessee is mentioned, a few of its native sons are immediately recognizable. Many people immediately know James Agee, born in Knoxville in 1909, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1958 for A Death in the Family. This book and many of his other works, such as Knoxville: Summer of 1915, are peopled with friends and family from his hometown. Beauford and Joseph Delaney, artists born in Knoxville and only a few years older than James Agee, are less well-known, hidden treasures whose lives and art were shaped by early experiences in Knoxville.

In a 1986 interview with Sam Yates, Director of the Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture at The University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Joseph Delaney said, "My mind goes back to those beautiful mountains and ridges and riversides, from West Knoxville out to Park City, and to the Tennessee River. No scenery is more beautiful to me than from East Knoxville all the way to West Knoxville down by the golf links, Cherokee Golf Club, where I caddied as a young boy, twenty-five cents a round. The beauty still stays with me. The beauty of that place as a child stays in my mind. The natural beauty was never spoiled. Clean river, nice people, just plain old beautiful Knoxville."1 (Fig. 1)

Fig. 1 Fig. 2

Beauford and Joseph Delaney were born to Reverend and Mrs. Samuel Delaney just as the twentieth century began. Beauford was born in 1901 and Joseph in 1904. Theirs was a large family of ten children, six of whom were boys. This photograph (Fig. 2), from about 1908, depicts Reverend Delaney, center back, and his wife, right back. Joseph is the little boy, seated left front, with his sister Ogust between he and his older brother, Beauford, seated right front. The family was strongly religious. Reverend Delaney, a Methodist minister, was at one time a circuit rider who visited congregations in small towns in the area surrounding Knoxville. Reverend Delaney died in 1919, when Joseph was only fifteen years old. This hardship led to odd jobs for the boys to supplement the family income after the loss of their father.

Fig. 3

Both Beauford and Joseph seemed to have exhibited artistic talent at an early age. With the encouragement and financial backing of the popular Knoxville artist, Lloyd Branson, Beauford studied at the Massachusetts Normal School, the South Boston School of Art, and attended evening classes at the Copley Society from 1924-1929. Pictured here is Branson's painting from 1910 titled The Hauling of Marble, which depicts one of the thriving industries of Knoxville at the time (Fig. 3). Knoxville's Candoro Marble Company supplied the marble for both the West Wing of the National Gallery in Washington, DC, designed by John Russell Pope, and the East Wing, designed by I.M. Pei. This painting is now in the University of Tennessee's Frank H. McClung Museum Collection.

Fig. 4 Fig. 5

Following his studies in Boston, Beauford moved to New York City, living first in Harlem and then moving to Greene Street, in what is now SoHo (Fig. 4). One of Beauford's early works from his sojourn in New York City is his abstract depiction, Greene Street, 1940. Beauford enjoyed opera and associated with many famous literary and musical figures of the day, including the Harlem Renaissance group and Henry Miller, James Baldwin, Ethel Waters, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Marian Anderson. In 1945, he showed his first series of portraits of writers Henry Miller and James Baldwin.2 Reproduced here are his Portrait of Marian Anderson (Fig. 5) and the painting of his close friend, James Baldwin (Fig. 6), who referred to Beauford Delaney as his spiritual father. Another of his close friends was Henry Miller, who in 1945, wrote The Amazing and Invariable Beauford Delaney.3 Also pictured here is his mother, Delia Delaney (Fig. 7), thought to have been painted from memory, ca. 1963, while he was living in Paris.

Fig. 6 Fig. 7

Beauford's work thrived in New York City and he painted Washington Square, familiar to many artists, about 1952. Beauford began an association with the Roko Gallery in New York City in 1949 and exhibited there annually until 1953. In that year, he left New York with the intention of settling in Rome, but a visit to Paris turned into a permanent stay.

While living as an expatriate artist in Paris, Beauford's work became more and more abstract, with attention to the effects of subtle gradations of tonal quality in paint on the canvas (Figs. 8 and 9). During this time, he exhibited in one-man and group shows at the Galerie Paul Fachetti in 1960, the Centre Culturel Américain in 1961 and 1972, the Galerie Lambert in 1964, the Musée Galleira in 1967, and the Galerie Darthea Speyer in 1973.4 The latter was a major showing of a selection of his work from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s and the catalog contains tributes from James Jones, James Baldwin, and Georgia O'Keeffe. The Paris years also continued his interest in portraiture, particularly depictions of his literary and musical friends including Howard Swanson and Antonia Correa.

Fig. 8 Fig. 9

During this time, Beauford also exhibited work in England, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland. His last one-man exhibition in the United States was at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1978. Beauford became mentally ill in the late 1970s and died at St. Ann's Hospital in Paris in 1979.

Examples of Beauford's paintings are owned by several private collectors in Paris, the New York Public Library, The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Newark Museum, the National Museum of American Art, the Art Institute in Chicago, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Following Beauford's death in Paris, his brother Joseph retrieved many of his paintings and kept them with him in New York City and later in Knoxville.

Joseph left his home in Knoxville at age eighteen and traveled throughout the Midwest as a hobo. He said, "Being brought up in a tense home like I wasan extremely Christian homeI was enjoying the vastness and range before my eyes, seeing people who were freer than I had ever known. I was just mystified with the new world. Being on the road gave me an experience it's hard to take away."5 Shown here is Joseph's Self-Portrait, 1965 (Fig. 10). In 1976, Joseph painted Hobo Jungle Feast, which depicts a group of hobos enjoying a meal cooked over a fire, with a train passing in the background. The social conviviality of the multiple vignettes included in this scene recall Joe's fond memories of life on the road.

Fig. 10

Joseph returned to Knoxville for a brief time in 1929. During that year he is credited with founding the first African-American Boy Scout Troop in Knoxville. In 1930, he moved to New York City, staying briefly on Greene Street with Beauford, and then settling in Harlem. He enrolled at the Art Students League where he studied with Thomas Hart Benton and Alexander Brooke and became acquainted with Jackson Pollock.

If we compare works by Joseph Delaney with those by Thomas Hart Benton, we can see traits in Benton's work that may have led to the development of Joseph Delaney's figural depictions. Figures in Benton's Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley, 1934, and Streetcar Named Desire, 1947-48, are examples that may have influenced Joseph Delaney. Incidentally, Benton's Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley is thought to contain at lower right a depiction of Jackson Pollock drinking from the cup.

Joe Delaney was fascinated throughout his life with the human figure and with crowds of people. For that reason his artwork thrived in New York City, although he lived in poverty and sold very little of his work. He regularly attended the Art Students League life drawing class where he continued to sketch into the 1980s. When he visited the Ewing Gallery in 1982, he introduced himself to Sam Yates, the Ewing Gallery's director. His pockets were overflowing with several small sketch books filled with his quick renderings of the human figure. Following this and other discussions with Mr. Delaney and visits to his studio/apartment in New York City, Sam Yates curated a retrospective exhibition of Joseph's work as part of Tennessee's Homecoming '86 celebrations. Many of the works shown here appeared in that exhibition.

In a scene painted from his childhood memories of his father, Joseph touches on his religious upbringing and his father's work as a circuit preacher (Fig. 11). This watercolor painting titled The Circuit Preacher was painted about 1943 and now hangs in the Beck Cultural Exchange Center in Knoxville.

Fig. 11 Fig. 12

Joe's early student work, such as Model with a Hat, painted in oil on board while in the class of Alexander Brooke at the Art Students League, illustrates the beginnings of
Joseph's work in portraiture; it is more static in composition and makes less use of light and shadow than his later work. A later painting reproduced here, titled Pretty Bess and painted in oil on canvas in 1957, shows a relaxed figural composition and his more developed use of tonal qualities (Fig. 12).

Through his studies at the Art Students League and participation in the Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit, Joseph Delaney qualified for assignments with the Works Progress Administration Artist Project. His first assignment was at the Children's Playground at 134th Street and 5th Avenue in New York City. Later WPA project assignments included working with Norman Lewis on the Edward Laning mural titled Story of the Recorded Word, now located in the New York Public Library, and drawings of Paul Revere's silver, American textiles, Dutch tapestries, and Chippendale furniture for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Index of American Design. In 1942, Joe received a Julius Rosenwald Grant of $1,200, which he used for travel up and down the eastern seaboard from Percy Rock, Maine to Charleston, South Carolina. The life of the cities he saw provided rich subject matter for his sketches and paintings.

Throughout his life, Joseph enjoyed blues clubs and musicians who spoke to the beat of everyday life. His friend Eubie Blake is depicted in a painting from 1981. He also thrived on the energy and excitement of New York City. Joe depicted his adopted city in View from South Battery Park, painted in 1954, and Herald Square at Night, painted in 1963.

Joe had an affinity for the everyday concerns of a bustling metropolis and in Washington Square Sketch Artist, 1952, and Central Park Skating, 1969, he depicted scenes he knew well. He participated in the Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit for over forty years, beginning with the first show in 1931. This venue provided Joseph Delaney with a way to develop public awareness of his work. As an African-American artist with few gallery affiliations and no patron support, Delaney eked out a living with occasional sales from this exhibition and with a variety of odd jobs. Occasionally his work was recognized through additions to the collections of major museums such as the National Museum of American Art and the Art Institute in Chicago. In Washington Square Sketch Artist, he depicts a fellow artist at work in Washington Square and he interprets a sight familiar to many travelers to New York City in Central Park Skating. In the catalog that accompanied his 1986 retrospective exhibition at the University of Tennessee's Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture, Joe said, "The curtain goes up on the stage of life every time we walk into the street. In spite of New York's being the most congested city I have been in, and know about; by and large it's just people on the move. I have enjoyed more than I can say seeing people and hearing them speak about things they love and enjoy."6

Joe also depicted scenes with which he was familiar because of his association with artists. In his 1965 drawing of the Lobby at the Art Students League, he shows us a place he frequented every week during his years in New York City, going there to sketch the life drawing models even after he no longer studied there formally. Artists' Studio Party, which he painted in 1940, was inspired by a party Joe gave for his friends at his studio on Bond Street. This work documents the openly integrated art crowd who lived and worked in Greenwich Village at the time of the painting. The figures in the painting exhibit the strong influence of Thomas Hart Benton but show a more exaggerated cartoon-like quality in the anatomical rendering and facial expressions.

Joe had a great fondness for parades and thoroughly enjoyed the different reactions of people in the crowd. In Easter Parade, 1965 (Fig. 13), he again exaggerates figural anatomy and expression to provide a diverse view of humanity showing off their Easter Sunday clothes. In the largest of a series of Easter parade images, the artist incorporates the spiritual and the unnatural into the crowded flow of people in which spectators and participants merge in a somewhat sarcastic commentary on the importance of appearance and people's interest in "showing off." Vine & Central, Knoxville, TN, a painting from 1940, is another impromptu gathering of people obviously enjoying themselves and the music. Joe said, "Every year in those days this fella, Al G. Fields, came into town. You know, it's a forgotten name because the man was a minstrel. He came into town like a Barnum and Bailey Show, and when he hit there'd be a big paradethat's what this painting is of. That parade was wild, but when it hit the corner of Vine and Central, all hell broke loose. We used to say, `Those cats break out.'"7

Fig. 13 Fig. 14

The painting titled VJ Day, Times Square (Fig. 14) was painted in 1961. It is in the University of Tennessee at Knoxville Collection and is presently on display in the University Center. It is a large painting, about eight by ten feet, and again shows a large crowd of people gathered in New York City to express their exuberance at the official end to the fighting in World War II.

Other parade scenes painted by Joseph Delaney in New York City include Hostage Parade, 1981, which depicts the return of Americans held in Iran for more than a year. Delaney mixes his exaggerated figures with patriotic American flags and chorus girls in a celebration scene. Macy's Parade (Fig. 15), on which Joe worked from 1974-1984, is a combination of several preliminary sketches recreating the annual New York City event, instantly recognizable in its familiarity, given Joseph Delaney's exaggerated cartoon-like quality and spectator/participant conviviality. His use of bright naive colors in this painting adds to the atmosphere of enjoyment and child-like wonder that most of us remember from seeing Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on television. I am sure that Joe went to stand on the street to enjoy it in person every year. The Macy's Parade painting is now in the permanent collection of the Knoxville Museum of Art.

Fig. 15

The art of the two Delaney brothers was different stylistically, but occasionally themes and color palettes coincided. Both of them shared a fondness for New York City, depicted by Beauford in Washington Art Square, 1951, and by Joseph in Around Henry Street, 1978. The exuberant pastel colors and child-like quality of both of these paintings illustrate the warmth that the city's attractions held for the two brothers.

Two paintings of churches by the Delaney brothers also share themes and memories from their Knoxville childhood. Beauford's A Church in Paris, ca. 1971, and Joseph's Marble Collegiate Church, 1974-75, perhaps reflect the religious upbringing, which influenced their early development, that became too confining as they became young adults and moved into the wider world beyond Knoxville, Tennessee.

We are fortunate that Joseph Delaney returned to Knoxville in 1986, where he became the University of Tennessee's first Artist-in-Residence, a position he held until his death in 1991. We are fortunate, too, that Joe did not forget "plain old beautiful Knoxville" when he left a portion of his estate to the University of Tennessee. The slides of the Delaney brothers' work, housed in the Department of Art's Visual Resources Collection at The University of Tennessee at Knoxville, have been used in teaching art history, of course. They are also a resource for both students and visiting scholars who are investigating the oeuvre of the Delaney brothers. One of the researchers who has visited Knoxville is presently engaged in writing a book on these "hidden treasures." Our gallery director is hopeful that as the gift of art works is formally transmitted to The University of Tennessee at Knoxville from the Delaney estate, one or more exhibitions can be developed that will allow access to art works that have been in storage for many years.

Author's Note: Since about 1982 I have worked with Sam Yates, Director of the Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture at The University of Tennessee at Knoxville, assisting with photography and research on the works of the Delaney brothers. Mr. Yates has received UTK Faculty Development Grants, which he has utilized to assist him with research in Paris and New York. I am grateful to Mr. Yates for the opportunity to work with him on this project and for allowing me to share some of our collaborative research with the attendees at the 1996 Southeastern College Art Conference, Visual Resources Curators session, at which this paper was presented, and with the readers of the VRA Bulletin. Images of works in the estates of Beauford and Joseph Delaney were photographed under the administrative supervision of the Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture in a project to document the works of the two Delaney brothers while Joseph Delaney was Artist-in-Residence at The University of Tennessee at Knoxville. All images accompanying this article are from the UTK Department of Art's Visual Resources Collection, unless noted otherwise.

Figures

1. Photograph of Joseph Delaney, 1986. Courtesy of Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
   
2. Photograph of the Delaney Family, ca. 1908. Standing (from left): Samuel, Jr., Reverend Samuel Delaney, Mrs. Delia Delaney; seated (from left): Joseph, Ogust, Beauford, Naomi. Reprinted from Joseph Delaney, Retrospective Exhibition, Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture, The University of Tennessee at Knoxville, 1986.
   
3. Lloyd Branson, The Hauling of Marble, oil/canvas, 1910. Collection of the Frank H. McClung Museum, The University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Photographed by W. Miles Wright, photographer, Frank H. McClung Museum.
   
4. Photograph of Beauford Delaney in his studio.
   
5. Beauford Delaney, Portrait of Marian Anderson, n.d., oil/ canvas. Estate of Beauford Delaney.
   
6. Beauford Delaney, James Baldwin, n.d., oil/canvas. Estate of Beauford Delaney.
   
7. Beauford Delaney, Delia Delaney, ca. 1963, oil/canvas. Estate of Beauford Delaney.
   
8. Beauford Delaney, Untitled, n.d., oil/canvas. Estate of Beauford Delaney.
   
9. Beauford Delaney, Untitled, n.d., oil/canvas. Estate of Beauford Delaney.
   
10. Joseph Delaney, Self Portrait, 1965, charcoal and pastel/ paper, 20" x 16". Collection of the Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture, The University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
    
11. Joseph Delaney, The Circuit Preacher, ca. 1943, water- color/paper, 13-3/4" x 18-1/2". Collection of the Beck Cultural Exchange Center, Knoxville, Tennessee.
    
12. Joseph Delaney, Pretty Bess, 1957, oil/canvas, 40" x 30". Estate of Joseph Delaney.
    
13. Joseph Delaney, Easter Parade, 1965, acrylic/canvas, 88" x 60". Estate of Joseph Delaney.
    
14. Joseph Delaney, VJ Day, Times Square, 1961, oil/canvas, 96" x 120". Collection of The University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
    
15. Joseph Delaney, Macy's Parade, 1974-1984, acrylic and pastel/canvas, 81" x 120". Collection of the Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, Tennessee.

Notes

1. Interview with Joseph Delaney by Sam Yates, quoted in Joseph Delaney, Retrospective Exhibition (Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 1986).
   
2. Catalog printout of Beauford Delaney Letters, provided by Mr. Andre Elizee of the Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, New York, 1994.
   
3. Henry Miller, The Amazing and Invariable Joseph Delaney, first published in 1945 by The Harmon Foundation, reprinted in the exhibition catalog, Beauford Delaney, published by The Studio Museum in Harlem to accompany the exhibition of Beauford Delaney's work, 1978.
   
4. Catalog printout of Beauford Delaney Letters from the Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, New York, 1994.
   
5. Interview with Joseph Delaney by Sam Yates, quoted in Joseph Delaney, Retrospective Exhibition (Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 1986).
   
6. Ibid.
   
7. Ibid.

©1997 Visual Resources Association