Delaney, Beauford (1901-1979), American painter, known for his colorful abstractions and expressive portraits. Influenced by the rhythms of Jazz music, Delaney’s work is characterized by thickly applied bright color that results in a richly textured canvas. In Abstraction (1930s, Galerie Darthea Speyer, Paris), a mass of undulating, entwined lines fills the canvas with vibrant hues.

Delaney was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and named by his parents for Beaufort, South Carolina, the town where they had previously lived. From 1924 to 1929 he lived in Boston, Massachusetts, and studied at the Massachusetts Normal School, Boston School of Art, and Copley Society. Delaney moved to New York City in 1929, where he worked as a hotel bellboy. He acquired a reputation as a portraitist and in 1930 had his first one-man show of pastel portraits and charcoal drawings at the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library. That same year, three of his portraits were included in a group show at the Whitney Studio Galleries, the predecessor to the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York City.

During the late 1940s Delaney chiefly painted street scenes and interiors; these works are characterized by large areas executed in a single color with thickly applied paint. An example of this style is Can Fire in the Park (1946, National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.), which depicts a group of people gathered around a fire blazing in a barrel. The figures, painted in deep shades of blue, red, green, and yellow, are outlined in black.

In 1953 Delaney settled in Paris, where his circle of friends included American writer James Baldwin and many other artists, critics, and collectors. One of Delaney’s best-known works from this period is a portrait of French writer Jean Genet (1970, Collection of Mrs. James Jones, Sagaponack, New York). In the portrait, Genet’s dark coat contrasts with his exposed white shirt collar and white hair. The black and white of his figure contrast with the bright colors of the surrounding environment.