Beauford Delaney, painter

I am just starting work on a new edit, a previously published biography of James Baldwin (1924–1987) ☚ . The "previously published" bit means that, really: no editing! Except to convert the text (styling, spelling, punctuation, turns of phrase, etc.) from British to American. Like, advert becomes advertisement; Mr becomes Mr. (with a period)—that sort of thing. It may sound tedious, but it's actually exactly the sort of minute attention to detail that my brain does really well, even thrives on—allowing for focus and flow. So yes: after forty-plus years of editing many, many hundreds of books, I may finally have found my dream job! (Oh dear. I hope I don't speak too soon. It's at least encouraging that the edition I'm working on has a rating of 4.5 stars on amazon; only three reviews, but still.)

But that's not why I'm here. I just now started opening the first files of the book, and in the illustration list I'm encountering names—including this dashing one: Beauford Delaney (1901–1979). I googled him, and found some riveting portraits, from the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s and 1940s, and then some abstract expressionist work after he moved to Paris in the 1950s.

The two of them ca. 1960, Paris

One of his frequent subjects was James Baldwin himself, who in 1940, at the age of 16, was encouraged by friends to introduce himself to the artist, then 39. Thus began a lifelong friendship. Delaney ended up painting ten or more portraits of the writer. In 1985, Baldwin wrote that Delaney was "the first living proof, for me, that a black man could be an artist. In a warmer time, a less blasphemous place, he would have been recognized as my Master and I as his Pupil. He became, for me, an example of courage and integrity, humility and passion. An absolute integrity: I saw him shaken many times and I lived to see him broken but I never saw him bow."

Here are a few of those portraits:

And here's one called Can Fire in the Park (1946), which is described by the Smithsonian American Art Museum as a "disturbingly contemporary vignette [that] conveys a legacy of deprivation linked not only to the Depression years after 1929 but also to the longstanding disenfranchisement of black Americans, portrayed here as social outcasts.… Despite its sober subject, the scene crackles with energy, the culmination of Delaney's sharp pure colors, thickly applied paints, and taut, schematic patterning. Abandoning the precise realism of his early academic training, Delaney developed a lyrically expressive style that drew upon his love of musical rhythms and his improvisational use of color."

I am glad, once again, that my job—even if sometimes it can be frustratingly hair-pulling as I try to understand just what the author was hoping to say . . . though other times it can involve simply chasing commas (or in the present case, substituting double quotes for single)—gives me such opportunity to keep on learning. I was raised to be a good student. I guess I still am one.

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Today's MoCo Covid-19 numbers: 3,162 confirmed cases (up 103: I guess the numbers aren't going down...); hospitalizations up 6 to 207; deaths remains at 18. May the latter number stay where it is, and the others start dropping.

Stay safe. Stay well. Celebrate art, beauty, and friendship.