THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Holland Cotter
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| Beauford Delaney’s “Dark Rapture (James Baldwin),” from 1941. The portrait of the young writer is a highlight of a group exhibition at David Zwirner Gallery. |
Two years ago,
Mr. Als produced a kind of rough draft version of it called “James Baldwin/Jim Brown and the Children” for the Artist’s Institute at Hunter College. At
Zwirner Gallery, he streamlines his material and zeros in on Baldwin himself. For a few years, Baldwin did, indeed, preach in Harlem; a recording of him singing “
Take My Hand, Precious Lord” plays in the gallery. The new family was situated downtown, and one of the first members Baldwin met — in 1940, when he was 16 or 17 — was the painter Beauford Delaney (1901-1979). Baldwin remained close to Delaney to the end of the older man’s life, by which time the care-taking roles had been reversed. [
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| Beauford Delaney’s “Rehearsal,” 1952, showing choir members preparing for a service.Credit |
