13
●
BEAUFORD DELANEY (1901 - 1979)
Untitled (Abstraction)
.
Oil on linen canvas, 1964. 406x336 mm; 16x13
1
/
4
inches. Signed, dated and inscribed “Paris” in oil, verso.
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist; Richard A. Long,Atlanta; thence by descent to his estate.
This small canvas is an exquisite example of Delaney’s signature abstraction in yellow and is from
an important year in his development. David Leeming wrote that Richard Long visited Beauford
Delaney in the fall of 1964, and again in the summer and fall of 1965. Long was instrumental in
organizing exhibitions of Delaney’s abstract work - first at Morgan State in the 1967, and later to
his 1978 retrospective at the Studio Museum in Harlem. In the retrospective catalogue, Long wrote
an introduction essay and lent works including his self-portrait in color pastels. In that introduction,
Long quoted the critic Jean Guichard-Meili’s response to Delaney’s 1964 exhibition at the Galerie
Lambert to describe his abstraction :
“It is clear that the eye which halts at the surface of these canvases, when they seem based on the
modulation of a single color (yellow, most often) perceives only a small measure of their resonance.
Only a methodical and extended exercise of vision will permit their being sensed and savored amid
and beneath the network of color tones, differentiated among themselves, the subtle play of this
pink and that blue (of the same value), the movements of internal convection, the vibrations of
underlying design.”
Long’s poem “Ascending”, his tribute to Delaney, and his other portrait, gifted to the High Museum,
were the inspiration for their 2002 exhibition
Beauford Delaney:The ColorYellow
, curated by Richard J.
Powell. Leeming 163, 165-66; Long p. 12.
[20,000/30,000]
