NEW YORK CITY — The top lot in Swann Auction Galleries’ October 3 auction of African American art was an untitled (Greenwich Village Street, New York) work by Beauford Delaney (1901-1979), which realized $629,000, including buyer’s premium, against a $250/350,000 presale estimate. The richly impastoed depiction of the Village is a scarce and significant example of Delaney’s New York period, according to the catalog notes, which states, “His depiction of a street corner and the El train line is particularly infused color through a densely layered impasto.”

The painting was oil on linen canvas, dated circa 1945-46 and measured 18 by 21½ inches. It was indistinctly signed and dated in oil, lower right recto, and inscribed “181 Greene St” (twice)” and “NY” on the stretcher bars, verso. Provenance indicated that the painting had been acquired directly from the artist to Professor Kenneth Lash (1918-1985) and descended in his family. Lash was a poet, essayist, university professor and chair of art and humanities departments. Before his service in the US Navy, Lash lived in New York in the early 1940s, where he frequented many jazz clubs and after-hours sessions at trumpeter Frankie Newton’s Greenwich Village loft, blocks away from Beauford Delaney’s studio. Lash was part of a support network of friends and patrons who assisted Delaney both before and after his trip to Paris. Watch for a later sale review in an upcoming issue.