{"data":{"id":"3433","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":3433,"topgoose_id":2365,"tms_id":3433,"display_name":"Beauford Delaney","sort_name":"Delaney Beauford","display_date":"1901–1979","begin_date":"1901","end_date":"1979","biography":"\u003cp\u003eBeauford Delaney studied art in Boston\nbefore settling in New York in 1929, drawn\nby the flourishing Harlem Renaissance.\nHe lived first in Harlem, then Greenwich\nVillage, where he intermingled with\nthe group of downtown artists that included\nAbstract Expressionist painters \u003ca href=\"/artists/339\"\u003eWillem\nde Kooning\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"/artists/1039\"\u003eJackson Pollock\u003c/a\u003e.\nAlthough he remained relatively unknown\nthroughout his career, Delaney also\nmoved among notable literary and musical\ncircles, establishing relationships with\nthe novelists James Baldwin and\nHenry Miller and depicting Duke Ellington\nand Louis Armstrong, among other\nluminaries, in his portraits.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDelaney traveled to Paris in 1953 for a visit and ended up remaining there for a quarter century, until his death. Like many African American artists in the mid-1950s, he found a more hospitable welcome and more open creative community there than in the United States. In \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/9421\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eAuto-\nPortrait\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e his venturesome feel for color is evident, as is his skillful manipulation of paint to emphasize its tactile qualities. The painting eschews the romanticizing, self-mythologizing proclivities of its genre for an honest, if unsettling, likeness: lines etch Delaney’s face, and a sense of vacant sadness predominates. A cigarette hangs from his mouth, and his expression is inward. A background of pink and orange, applied in coarse whorls, intensifies the dramatic tension, while intermittent strokes of electric blue animate the canvas with pulsating energy. Delaney had long been plagued by depression, feeling an acute sense of marginalization throughout his life due to racism, poverty, and homophobia. Shortly before painting \u003cem\u003eAuto-Portrait\u003c/em\u003e, he suffered a nervous\ncollapse, adding significance to his state\nof mind as rendered in this work.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500062429","wikidata_id":"Q2893161","created_at":"2017-08-30T17:20:22.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-03-30T07:02:01.831-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/3433/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/3433/exhibitions"}}}}