Beauford Delaney, Greene Street, 1940
The John Axelrod Collection—Frank B. Bemis Fund, Charles H. Bayley Fund, and The Heritage Fund for a Diverse Collection. Estate of Beauford Delaney, by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire, Court Appointed Administrator.
Beauford Delaney’s Greene Street combines the artist’s love of jazz, his nightlife experiences, and his everyday life while living on Greene Street in Greenwich Village. Jazz spurred a strong artistic shift at midcentury: artists began to create more dynamic, expressive, and visually explosive works. Layered, somehow harmonic, yet visually dissonant, this mishmash of dynamic shapes and colorful palettes forms Delaney’s geometric representation of his neighborhood.