Object Record
Images
Metadata
Artist |
Delaney, Beauford |
Title |
Dante Pavone |
Medium |
Pastel on paper |
Date |
1942 |
Description |
Beauford Delaney (Knoxville 1901-1979 Paris) Dante Pavone, 1942 Pastel on paper 23 ½ x 18 ¼ inches Knoxville Museum of Art, 2017 gift of Penny Lynch and Kimbro Maguire in honor of Stephen Wicks Early in his career, Beauford Delaney was known for his vibrant pastel portraits such as this image of New York-based singer Dante Pavone (1910-1997), who was a close friend of Delaney's from 1936 until 1953. Pavone was a nightclub performer and later a voice coach for performers including Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Aretha Franklin, and Steven Tyler. For years, Delaney was obsessed with Pavone, and produced many portraits of him. In his chapbook The Amazing and Invariable Beauford DeLaney, writer and friend Henry Miller observed "Dante was a beautiful landscape for Beauford: he had cosmic proportions, and his skull though shorn of locks was full of mystery. A man studying his friend day in and day out for five years ought to arrive at some remarkable conclusions. With time Dante could become for Beauford what Oedipus became for Freud." This work combines elements of Delaney's descriptive early style with new abstract elements, and illustrates the artist's frequent practice of including symbolic imagery within portrait compositions. |
Catalog Number |
2017.08.01 |
Search Terms |
Pastels (Visual works) Men Portrait drawings Portraits Paper Drawings LBGTQ+ Artist |
Credit line |
gift of Penny Lynch and Kimbro Maguire in honor of Stephen Wicks |