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Speculative light : the arts of Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin / edited by Amy J. Elias.

By: Contributor(s): Publication details: Durham : Duke University Press, 2025.Description: xix, 332 pages : illustrations ; 23 cmISBN:
  • 9781478030058
  • 9781478059042
  • 9781478024873
Subject(s):
Contents:
Speculative light : the arts of Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin / Amy J. Elias
Part I. Circuits of selfhood -- Jimmy and Beauford : the bond of the unusual door / David Leeming -- The mentor : James Baldwin, Beauford Delaney, and the habit of doing / Hilton Als -- "You pay for your life with your life" : James Baldwin's search for Jimmy Baldwin, 1969-1972 / Ed Pavlić -- Beauford Delaney's Black Queer fatherhood / Magdalena J. Zaborowska
Part II. Synesthesia and arts in dialogue -- Blue(s) as cymbal : Beauford Delaney (Elvin Jones) James Baldwin / Fred Moten -- Baldwin and Delaney : yellows and blues / Robert G. O'Meally -- Chiaroscuro, Delaney's aesthetic vision, and Baldwin's "Sonny's blues" / D. Quentin Miller -- Yellow light, Black abstraction : jazz, writing, and ethical shattering in Baldwin's and Delaney's works / Walton Muyumba -- Baldwin/Delaney/Cazac / Nicholas Boggs -- Singed innocence : Baldwin, Delaney, and the problematic Black child / Robert F. Reid-Pharr
Part III. Visibility, performance, abstraction -- Baldwin and Delaney : the politics and performance of Black sight / Indie A. Choudhury -- Shared subjects / Rachel Cohen -- Choosing both : abstraction and singularity in Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin / Monika Gehlewat -- "Architects of the spirit" : color and intimacy in Beauford Delaney's post-1950 abstractions / Abbe Schriber -- Feeling modernist : Beauford Delaney's Self-portrait (1944) / Levi Prombaum -- "The Giacometti effect" : reconsidering Beauford Delaney's 1966 portrait bust of James Baldwin / Stephen C. Wicks
Part IV. Continuing influence -- Queer radiance : Beauford Delaney at the bathhouse / Tyler T. Schmidt -- Baldwin, Delaney, and Black artists' genealogical legacies / Shawn Anthony Christian -- In a speculative light : the portrait project / Jered Sprecher
Summary: This book explores the lifelong friendship of writer James Baldwin and painter Beauford Delaney, two men bound by their status as U.S. Black queer expatriates in France, as well as by their innovations in African American aesthetics. However, while Baldwin's work has held the public's attention for decades, Delaney and his paintings - which spanned the Harlem Renaissance to Abstract Expressionism - are largely absent from mainstream and contemporary art criticism. This collection brings together scholars, theorists, artists, and critics to shed light on not just the biographical details of Delaney and Baldwin's lives, but on how their friendship fuelled both artists' works. Investigating topics of queer love, Black aesthetics, formal play, synaesthesia, and jazz, the contributors analyse Baldwin and Delaney's bond as grounds for theorizing Black care and queer masculinity in the contemporary moment.
List(s) this item appears in: LGBTQ+ History Month 2026
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Book CGLAS Library Monographs Room DEL (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available 13485

Includes bibliographical references (pages [289]-307) and index.

Speculative light : the arts of Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin / Amy J. Elias

Part I. Circuits of selfhood -- Jimmy and Beauford : the bond of the unusual door / David Leeming -- The mentor : James Baldwin, Beauford Delaney, and the habit of doing / Hilton Als -- "You pay for your life with your life" : James Baldwin's search for Jimmy Baldwin, 1969-1972 / Ed Pavlić -- Beauford Delaney's Black Queer fatherhood / Magdalena J. Zaborowska

Part II. Synesthesia and arts in dialogue -- Blue(s) as cymbal : Beauford Delaney (Elvin Jones) James Baldwin / Fred Moten -- Baldwin and Delaney : yellows and blues / Robert G. O'Meally -- Chiaroscuro, Delaney's aesthetic vision, and Baldwin's "Sonny's blues" / D. Quentin Miller -- Yellow light, Black abstraction : jazz, writing, and ethical shattering in Baldwin's and Delaney's works / Walton Muyumba -- Baldwin/Delaney/Cazac / Nicholas Boggs -- Singed innocence : Baldwin, Delaney, and the problematic Black child / Robert F. Reid-Pharr

Part III. Visibility, performance, abstraction -- Baldwin and Delaney : the politics and performance of Black sight / Indie A. Choudhury -- Shared subjects / Rachel Cohen -- Choosing both : abstraction and singularity in Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin / Monika Gehlewat -- "Architects of the spirit" : color and intimacy in Beauford Delaney's post-1950 abstractions / Abbe Schriber -- Feeling modernist : Beauford Delaney's Self-portrait (1944) / Levi Prombaum -- "The Giacometti effect" : reconsidering Beauford Delaney's 1966 portrait bust of James Baldwin / Stephen C. Wicks

Part IV. Continuing influence -- Queer radiance : Beauford Delaney at the bathhouse / Tyler T. Schmidt -- Baldwin, Delaney, and Black artists' genealogical legacies / Shawn Anthony Christian -- In a speculative light : the portrait project / Jered Sprecher

This book explores the lifelong friendship of writer James Baldwin and painter Beauford Delaney, two men bound by their status as U.S. Black queer expatriates in France, as well as by their innovations in African American aesthetics. However, while Baldwin's work has held the public's attention for decades, Delaney and his paintings - which spanned the Harlem Renaissance to Abstract Expressionism - are largely absent from mainstream and contemporary art criticism. This collection brings together scholars, theorists, artists, and critics to shed light on not just the biographical details of Delaney and Baldwin's lives, but on how their friendship fuelled both artists' works. Investigating topics of queer love, Black aesthetics, formal play, synaesthesia, and jazz, the contributors analyse Baldwin and Delaney's bond as grounds for theorizing Black care and queer masculinity in the contemporary moment.