BEAUFORD DELANEY (1901 - 1979) Untitled (Portrait of a Youth )
Oil and crayon on canvas, 1966. 650x540 mm; 25 5/8x21 1/4 inches. Signed in crayon, lower left.
Provenance: ex-collection the artist; gift to James Baldwin, Istanbul, 1966; gift to David Leeming, New York, 1967; sold to Wendell Gallery, Cambridge, MA; private collection. With a signed letter of provenance from David Leeming stating:
"Portrait of a Youth by my friend Beauford Delaney, was painted in Istanbul, Turkey in a series of several sittings with the subject, often in my presence, during the summer of 1966. The subject was a young friend of James Baldwin. James Baldwin, Beauford, and I, and sometimes the subject of the portrait, were sharing a house on the Bosphorus at the time. Beauford gave the painting to Baldwin and me to hang in the house we moved to in the Fall. Beauford returned to Paris. When in the spring of 1967 Baldwin left for New York and I remained in Istanbul, Baldwin gave the painting to me to keep. I sold it some time later to the Wendell Street Gallery in Cambridge. Later I would write biographies of both James Baldwin (Knopf) and Beauford Delaney (Oxford)."
