Images from the Beauford Delaney Papers, MS.3967, Betsey B. Creekmore Special Collections and University Archives, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Estate of Beauford Delaney by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire, Court-Appointed Administrator.
The Beauford Delaney Papers, held at the University of Tennessee Libraries, is now available to researchers, students, and instructors.
The Beauford Delaney Papers consists of family, personal, and professional correspondence, photographs, sketchbooks and notebooks, artwork, exhibition material, and biographical records created or collected by the Knoxville-born, African-American artist Beauford Delaney (1901–1979). He is widely regarded as one of the major modernist painters of his time. His brother is Joseph Delaney, another well-known modernist painter.
In addition to material related to the production of Delaney’s artwork, the collection includes correspondence with influential artists and gallerists such as Palmer Hayden, Lawrence Calcagno, James LeGros, Dorothy Block, Darthea Speyer, and Joseph Delaney; the writers James Baldwin, Henry Miller, and James Jones; and other cultural figures.
Researchers can learn more about the collection by using the online finding aid. Visit lib.utk.edu/special for information on using materials from UT’s Betsey B. Creekmore Special Collections and University Archives.
