Opening the Unusual Door

Abstract

James Baldwin walked through Beauford Delaney’s door in 1941. Delaney (1901–1979) was an impoverished African American artist who lived for years in New York City’s Greenwich Village where he was a legend for many. Art critics note Delaney’s abstract, impressionistic paintings—especially Greene Street, Washington Square, Marian Anderson, Nativity Scene —and his arresting usage of light. (He was partial to the color yellow.) 1 Baldwin’s friend Emile told him about Delaney in 1941, the year Baldwin left the pulpit. Working after school on a “Dickensian” sweat job on Canal Street, he “dreaded going home” and so took Capouya’s advice. After work, he “went to 181 Greene Street, where Beauford lived,” nervously climbed the stairs and knocked (CE, 830). 2 A “short, round brown man came to the door” and sized him up with “extraordinary” X-ray eyes. Baldwin said, “Emile sent me.” In his “The Price of the Ticket” essay (1985), Baldwin writes that he would often hear Delaney sing in his rich baritone “Lord, open the unusual door.” Delaney certainly opened one for Baldwin; for he entered into the light “of Beauford’s colors” and heard the music that would become the key to Go Tell It on the Mountain and The Amen Corner.