Rating and value of paintings by Beauford Delaney

If you own a work by or after Beauford Delaney, and would like to know its value, our state-approved experts and auctioneers will offer you their appraisal services.

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Rating and value of artist Beauford Delaney     

Artist Beauford Delaney leaves behind a unique body of work, consisting mainly of contemporary sculptures. Now, prices for his works are exploding under auctioneers' hammers.

His paintings are highly prized, especially by French buyers. The price at which they sell on the art market ranges from €150 to €941,715, a very substantial range but one that speaks volumes about the value that can be attributed to Beuaford Delaney's works.

In 2022, his oil on canvas James Baldwin dating from 1966 sold for €941,715, while it was estimated at between €206,710 and €287,100 by Christie's. Its value is at its highest in recent years.

Order of value from a simple work to the most prestigious

Style and technique by artist Beauford Delaney  

Beauford Delaney (1901 - 1979) was a major African-American painter whose art evolved from expressive figuration to luminous abstraction. He worked mainly in oil on canvas, with a thickly impastoed brushwork marked by visible brush or knife marks.

He also worked with pastel and drawing, particularly during his years in Paris, developing a calligraphic style close to all-over. At first, he depicts urban scenes (Harlem, Greenwood Street) and vibrant portraits with reduced forms, framed by expressive outlines.

The colors are pure, applied in saturated, repetitive zones, capturing the energy of New York's neighborhoods and clubs. His work then underwent a gradual shift towards luminous abstraction, producing all-over compositions in diffuse colors, suggesting celestial light or transcendent atmospheres.

In the 1960s - 1970s, he made a radical transition to rhythmic abstraction, where light becomes pictorial matter. The works he painted after his stay in Paris are akin to light studies that evoke the sky, foliage or bursts of color freed from figurative anchorage.

Delaney thus oscillates between figuration and abstraction, without ever being strictly realistic. He is often associated with the Harlem Renaissance, and moves away towards a more interior and spiritual pictorial expression.

His late abstraction, seen as a metaphor for freedom, was encouraged by his friend James Baldwin. He is a precursor of American abstract expressionism, with a unique sensibility irrigated by the prism of light.

His trajectory traverses varied influences (fauvism, lyrical abstraction, expressionism) to culminate in an intense, luminous and spiritual painting.

The life of Beauford Delaney

Beuaford Delaney (1901 - 1979) was an artist born in Knoxville, Tennessee, into a modest family. His father was a modernist preacher, and his mother, a seamstress, gave him a taste for colors and fabrics.

His childhood was marked by segregation and a restrictive social environment, but rich in spiritual and musical culture. From an early age, he showed a particular talent for painting and drawing, encouraged by those around him.

He entered an apprenticeship in Boston in the early 1920s, where he studied art and worked as a portrait painter. During this period, he also discovered the great masters of Western painting in museums.

Delaney made various encounters with progressive intellectual circles, who introduced him to the Harlem Renaissance, as well as to emerging African-American artists. Between 1929 and 1930, he moved to New York, where he became a fixture of the Greenwich Village and Harlem neighborhoods, frequenting writers, musicians and artists.

He worked as a portraitist and painter of urban scenes, and was known for his expressive figurative style. However, he left New York in 1953 for Paris, seeking to escape American racism. In Paris, his work gradually shifted towards luminous abstraction, where color became a pictorial language.

He then joined several international artistic circles, exhibited in various galleries and cozied up to the Franco-American intellectual scene.

Diagnosed schizophrenic in the 1960s, he was plagued by financial difficulties as well as episodes of psychic disorders that disrupted his career. However, he continued to produce during these difficulties.

He died at the Hôpital Sainte-Anne, where he was interned, in 1979. After his death, he remained in the shadows, but was rediscovered in the 1990s thanks to American and French researchers and institutions.

Today, he is considered an important African-American painter of the 20th century, at the crossroads of the Harlem Renaissance, Expressionism and Abstraction. His works can be found in major collections such as those of MoMA, the Smithsonian and the Centre Pompidou.

His critical rediscovery is recent. His painting is now seen as a language of light and freedom, marked by a quest for identity and universality.

Market segmentation and the artist's rating 

Beauford Delanay is best known for his iconic figurative portraits. His 1966 portrait of James Baldwin fetched $1.15M in 2022, the absolute record for the artist.

Figurative paintings and urban scenes from the 1940s - 50s are also highly prized, with Village Street Scene, dating from 1948, selling for $557,000 in 2018. Another copy also sold for $348,000 after reattribution.

Medium-format and abstract paintings also feature prominently among the artist's best results. Flash of Spring, for example, sold for $810,000 at Christie's in 2020, and a street scene fetched $478,000.

Several other medium-format canvases sold for between $150,000 and $315,000.

With regard to works on paper (gouache, pastel, drawing), we find frequent sales in the $10,000 - $40,000 range, with for example Untitled (Composition in Yellow, Orange and Red) estimated at $120,000 - $180,000.

Over the last 36 months, the average sale price has been around $211,000, with a sales rate of around 55 lots per year. Sales range from $705 to $1,150,170, depending on size and medium.

For this artist, we note a strong valorization of late abstraction, so his works made in Paris, which are abstract and luminous, rise significantly in value. Figurative scenes from the 1940s - 50s are also attracting significant bids, especially urban views.

Recent record prices testify to a desire to rediscover the artist, driven by the attention of collectors and institutions to avant-garde African-American artists, in the image of other painters such as Albade Glover, Gérard Sekoto or Iba N Diaye.

Recognizing the artist's signature

Not all works by Beauford Delaney are signed. They may be at the bottom of the painting or work, but if you think you own one, it's best to have it appraised to be sure of the originality of your property.

Knowing the value of a work

If you happen to own a work by or after Beauford Delaney, don't hesitate to request a free appraisal using our form on our website.

A member of our team of experts and chartered auctioneers will contact you promptly to provide you with an estimate of the market value of your work, as well as ad hoc information about it.

If you wish to sell your work, you will also be accompanied by our specialists in order to benefit from alternatives for selling it at the best possible price, taking into account the inclinations of the market.