Beauford Delaney (American/Tennessee, 1901-1979) watercolor and gouache abstract painting entitled "Ibiza." Two thick, vertical black bars rendered in watercolor enclose at left and right a gestural web of calligraphic black linework, with fainter watercolor forms beneath. Signed and inscribed "Ibiza" in blue pen, lower right. On Schoellers Parole paper with blind stamp, upper right. Floated in a modern ebonized wood frame with ivory mat. Sheet: 18" H x 11 7/8" W. Frame: 28 3/4" H x 22 7/8" W. Exhibition History: "Beauford Delaney: From New York to Paris," The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, November 20, 2004 - February 20, 2005, and included in the catalog as Untitled (Ibiza), catalog number 24. Note: Likely executed in Ibiza, Spain, while on a trip with writer James Baldwin and painter Larry Calcagno in 1956. Two related works also inscribed "Ibiza" were included in the 2013 exhibition "Beauford Delaney: Internal Light" at Levis Fine Art in New York.Â

Biographical note: Modernist artist Beauford Delaney was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. An apprentice to artist Lloyd Branson, Delaney was encouraged by his mentor to study art in Boston. In 1929 he traveled to New York and established himself as a prominent artist of the Harlem Renaissance. There he gained the attention and admiration of well-known writers and artists such as James Baldwin, Georgia O'Keefe, Alfred Stieglitz, and many others. Delaney experimented throughout his career with a wide variety of styles, including his personal brands of realism, fauvism, post-impressionism, and abstract expressionism. His departure from New York to Paris in 1953 also marked his transition from figurative compositions to abstractions with a focus on color and light. In 1978, the year before he died, the Studio Museum in Harlem initiated its Black Master series with a retrospective of his work. His paintings can be found in the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago; the National Portrait Gallery, the Smithsonian Institution, and other major museums.

Excellent condition. With faint pink coloration beneath signature and inscription, left in the making.