The Beauford Delaney Papers (1909-1991) are personal and professional records (letters, notes, journals, photographs, artwork and printed materials) created or collected by the Knoxville-born artist Beauford Delaney (1901-1979), now regarded as one of the major modernist painters of his time.
The papers are grouped into seven series based on the format and content of the material.
Click the + marks on the "collection contents" box below to see more information about each series.
A folder-level guide to the collection is available on Scout (link to MS.3967 finding aid), where you can also make appointments to view the items in person.
Beauford Delaney was born in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1901. His father (John) Samuel Delaney was a circuit-riding Methodist preacher, and his mother, Delia Elizabeth (Johnson) Delaney, was born into slavery. Only four of their ten children survived to adulthood. His early artistic training was supported by prominent members of Knoxville’s Black and artistic communities. In 1923, Delaney left Knoxville to pursue further studies in Boston, and by 1929 moved on to New York City. A year later (1930) he had his first solo show, at the New York Public Library’s 135th branch. In the same year his work was included in a group exhibit at what is now the Whitney Museum of Art. Over the next two decades Delaney became a highly regarded figure in the Harlem Renaissance, his colorful paintings reflecting a New York of jazz musicians, street and interior scenes, and portraits, including those of friends and acquaintances such as Georgia O’Keefe, James Baldwin and Henry Miller.
Photograph 46: Beauford Delaney Sitting on Bed in Studio, 1940, circa 1960s, Beauford Delaney Papers, MS.3967. University of Tennessee Libraries, Knoxville, Betsey B. Creekmore Special Collections and University Archives.
Beauford Delaney moved to Paris in 1953, where he continued to develop his personal and professional network. His work, increasingly in the vein of abstract expressionism, was shown in solo and group exhibitions at many Paris galleries (including those of Paul Facchetti, Yvon Lambert and Darthea Speyer) and other countries. Delaney counted many renowned cultural figures among his friends and devotees, including James Baldwin and Henry Miller, James Jones, Palmer Hayden, Lawrence Calcagno, James LeGros, Dorothy Block, and Darthea Speyer. While Delaney's correspondence shows he was held in high regard in elite but relatively small cultural circles, he was not well known. This obscurity is often attributed to the fact that he was a Black man in overlapping cultures where people of his race were roudly discouraged from participating. He was also gay in a time where this often had to remain hidden knowledge. Delaney also suffered from chronic mental illness. His health declined during the last two decades of his life, and he died in Paris in 1979. Beauford Delaney is now considered by a growing number of scholars and critics to be one of the major modernist painters of the 20th century.
Photograph 181: Beauford Delaney Standing in Front of James Baldwin Portrait in Studio, circa 1960s, Beauford Delaney Papers, MS.3967. University of Tennessee Libraries, Knoxville, Betsey B. Creekmore Special Collections and University Archives.
To request materials from the collection, create or login to your Special Collections Research Account on Aeon and schedule a time to view materials within our Reading Room.
Refer to the library calendar for our current hours of operation.
For more information, consult the Special Collections homepage.
Below is a shorter version of the finding aid. For a folder-level finding aid (with the exception of the first series), please see Scout.
For an item-level finding aid, please email Kris Bronstad at lbronsta@utk.edu.
