Professor, Richard Powell: My name is Richard Powell. I’m an art historian at Duke University.
Beauford Delaney was an American artist, a painter, working mid-20th century. People who met Beauford Delaney often comment about the twinkle in his eye, the energy that seemed to encircle him. It was almost like a halo of pleasure, of happiness, of just pure joy. He was a real searcher and a real explorer of ideas and feelings and sensations.
O’Keeffe would describe Delaney:
Actor (Georgia O’Keeffe): “He was . . . impossible to define. I think of him . . . as a special experience . . . a special kind of thought.”
Richard Powell: I think that these represent Georgia O’Keeffe’s desire to capture the essence of someone who she hasn’t quite figured out.
As one looks at the way the charcoal or the pastel is applied to the paper, and how she works from cheek to nose to mouth to chin—it’s an action, a process of trying to carve out a form, a highlight, or the curl of a lip. And one really feels this exploring of his face.
In choosing to render him multiple times, O’Keeffe tips her hat at, okay, how can I capture this energy? And I’m pretty certain Beauford Delaney, on one hand, was flattered, but I don’t think he would’ve seen it as extraordinary, because I think he knew he was special, as she says, an “experience,” a “thought,” a “force,” even.