In this vividly colored self-portrait, Beauford Delaney represented his likeness with a vibrant yet haunting intensity.The son of a Tennessee preacher, Delaney studied art in Boston before settling in 1929 in New York, where he became a familiar fixture in the downtown art scene, befriending such Abstract Expressionist artists as Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock. Using bold, thick strokes of paint to render his features, Delaney projected a penetrating, uncompromising view of himself, suggesting an intensive scrutiny of his psyche as well as his appearance. The visionary power of this self-portrait shares many qualities with the expressionistic work of Pollock from this time.
Restricted gift of Alexander C. and Tillie S. Speyer Foundation; Samuel A. Marx Endowment
Reference Number
1991.27
Extended information about this artwork
Andrea D. Barnwell, “Self–Portrait,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 24, 2 (1992): 200–2 (ill.).
Esther E. Grisham, Art Education 46, 4 (July 1993): 25–28, 37–40.
Chicago Reader, January 17, 1997, Section 2, 17 (ill., image reversed).
Andrea D. Barnwell and Kirsten P. Buick, “A Portfolio of Works by African American Artists Continuing the Dialogue: A Work in Progress,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 24, 2 (1999): 185.
Philippe Briet, ed., Tributary (New York: Edgewise Press, 1999), (ill.).
Judith A. Barter et al., American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955, (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2009), cat. 149 (ill.).
“Georgia O’Keeffe’s Beauford Delaney,” The Art Institute of Chicago Member Magazine (Spring 2019): 31 (ill.).
Newark Museum, Against the Odds: African–American Artists and the Harmon Foundation, Jan 13–Apr 15, 1990, cat. 32 (ill. pl. 25); Charleston, Gibbes Art Gallery, May 7–Jul 9, 1990; Chicago Public Library, Cultural Center, Jul 28–Sep 29, 1990.
Art Institute of Chicago, In Their Own Right: Images of African Americans, Sep 27, 1997–Jan 11, 1998.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Collecting: African American Art in the Art of the Art Institute of Chicago, Feb 15–Mar 18, 2003.
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Beauford Delaney: From New York to Paris, Nov 20, 2004–Feb 20, 2005, cat. 5 (ill.).
Shanghai Museum, Pathways to Modernism: American Art, 1865–1945, Sep 28, 2018–Jan 6, 2019, cat. 37.
Atelier Dore, San Francisco; Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, New York City, by 1989 [lent to Newark Museum 1990; cat. published 1989]; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1991.
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