FILTER RESULTS
Photograph by Joshua Nefsky; Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York
Charlie Parker
196828 3/4 x 23 1/2 in. (73 x 59.7 cm)
Beauford Delaney
United States (Knoxville, TN, 1901 – 1979, Paris)
Object Type:
Painting
Medium and Support:
Oil on canvas
Credit Line:
Maurice R. and Maxine B. Forman Fund, Herdle Fund, Lyman K. and Eleanore B. Stuart Endowment Fund, Marion Stratton Gould Fund, and the Estate of Susan Eisenhart Schilling
Accession Number:
2015.9
Location: Currently on view
Beauford Delaney was a charming, witty, and very well-loved sophisticate who took up residence as a painter in Harlem, New York, in the late 1920s during the Harlem Renaissance. A gay African American, he moved to Greenwich Village in the 1940s and was one of the few cultural figures in New York City at the time to circulate in both the uptown and downtown scenes. In 1957 Delaney traveled to Paris for what he thought would be a brief visit and ended up living and painting there the rest of his life.
Delaney made this painting, a portrait of jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, while in Paris. It was purchased from Delaney by the actor Billy Dee Williams, when Williams was accompanied to Delaney’s studio by the artist’s best friend, the author James Baldwin. Yellow, the color of sunlight, joy, and spiritual revelation, was Delaney’s favorite color. It was symbolic of his optimism as he struggled against the illnesses of alcoholism and depression that plagued him much of his life, eventually leading to his death in St. Anne’s Hospital for the Insane in Paris.
[Gallery label text, Summer 2015]
Delaney made this painting, a portrait of jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, while in Paris. It was purchased from Delaney by the actor Billy Dee Williams, when Williams was accompanied to Delaney’s studio by the artist’s best friend, the author James Baldwin. Yellow, the color of sunlight, joy, and spiritual revelation, was Delaney’s favorite color. It was symbolic of his optimism as he struggled against the illnesses of alcoholism and depression that plagued him much of his life, eventually leading to his death in St. Anne’s Hospital for the Insane in Paris.
[Gallery label text, Summer 2015]
Provenance
Purchased from the artist by Billy Dee Williams, Los Angeles, CA, 1968; Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY; purchased from them by the Gallery in 2015
Additional Images
Click an image to view a larger version
Exhibition List
This object was included in the following exhibitions:
- Blues for Smoke 10/21/2012 - 1/5/2014
- Beauford Delaney: Through the Unusual Door Knoxville Museum of Art 2/7/2020 - 10/25/2020
Bibliography
This object has the following bibliographic references:
- Article Author: Spevak, Jeff. Article Title: Re-arranged MAG Showcases New Acquisitions. Article Scope: Discussion and reproduction. Democrat and Chronicle. Rochester, NY: Rochester Print Co. Issue Date: August 23, 2015.
- Antiques and the Arts Weekly. Newtown, CT: The Bee Publishing Co., Inc.
- Article Author: Cooke, Lynne. Article Title: Best of 2013. Article Scope: Mention and reproduction. Artforum. San Francisco, CA: J. Irwin Page Number: 206-207
- Article Author: Cotter, Holland. Article Title: Mood Indigo: A Playlist for the Mind. Article Scope: Mention and reproduction. The New York Times. New York, NY: H.J. Raymond & Co Issue Date: February 8, 2013. Page Number: C25
- Article Scope: Reproduction only. Blues for Smoke. Columbus, OH: Wexner Center for the Arts, 2013.
- Article Scope: Entry and reproduction. Blues for Smoke. Munich: Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2012.
- Article Author: Campbell, Mary. Article Title: "I Will Not Be Moved": Beauford Delaney's (Self-) Portraits of Rosa Parks. Article Scope: Mention and reproduction. Stephen C. Wicks, ed. Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin: Through the Unusual Door. Knoxville, TN: Knoxville Museum of Art, 2020. Page Number: 45, Figure Number: 4
- Article Scope: Mention and reproduction. The Portraits of Beauford Delaney. New York, NY: Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 2021.
Portfolio List
Click a portfolio name to view all the objects in that portfolio
This object is a member of the following portfolios: