Beauford Delaney

Beauford Delaney is one of the 20^th century’s great abstract artist and he was born right here is Knoxville. He is more well-known in Harlem and Paris than he is Knoxville, but the Knoxville Museum of Art, Beck Cultural Exchange Center and the East Tennessee Historical Society is looking to change that. They are in the process of buying many of his art pieces that are in Paris and some of his smaller works already sit at the Knoxville Museum of Art. Beauford Delaney was born at the end of 1901 and lived in Knoxville until he was 23. He apprenticed under Lloyd Branson, who was a leading figure in the Knoxville art scene at the time. He moved to Boston to further study art and then move to Harlem during the Renaissance of the 1930’s and 1940’s. There he was able to create some of his more famous works like Can Fire in the Park and made friends with many famous people like Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Miller. In 1953, he moved to Paris, France and that is where he lived for the rest of his life, except for a few visits to Knoxville. Paris is where he shifted his art to abstract expressionism. As great of an artist as he was, he became an alcoholic in the 1960’s and his mental state took a toll. He was committed to an asylum in Paris in 1975 where he lived until he died in 1979. I think that it is great that the Knoxville historical and artistic community is coming together to make this artist well-known in the Knoxville community again.