?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000
BEAUFORD DELANEY (1901-1979)
Untitled (Portrait of a Young Man). Watercolor and pastels on green wove paper, 622x469 mm; 24 1/2x18 1/2 inches. Signed and dated in pencil, right center. 1938.
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist's brother Joseph Delaney; private collection.
This sensitive portrait is an early work by Beauford Delaney, made while he was living and working in Greenwich Village. He settled in the Village due to his ideals of integration and a bohemian lifestyle that he saw fit for himself. Delaney painted portraits of friends, supporters, and public figures relevant to him. His social consciousness led him to portray his friends and associates with all racial and sexual backgrounds. He depicted both black and white people, and the hetero-normative and queer residents of the Village. Delaney lived a romantically solitary life as he chose not to express his underlying sexuality due to his strict religious upbringing and the politics of the era.
