Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog

The Artist's Party by Joseph Delaney

I was in New York for an annual symposium on American art in the spring of 2003. I went even though the IMA was still contemplating the purchase of a work that I had strongly advocated for the museum’s African American collection. The symposium was important, but so was the purchase, so I kept an open communication with the IMA via cell phone.  The decision to purchase this painting was difficult because Joseph Delaney is not a well known African American artist.

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The Museum just acquired a sculpture by Augusta Savage titled Gamin. Why would I recommend this piece for museum purchase? The main reason, of course, is because it is a great work of art. It is the first piece by an African American woman artist to be acquired by the American collection. African American women artists were rare before 1945 and the availability of their work even rarer. The Museum was fortunate to be offered the most famous sculpture created by this very important Harlem Renaissance sculptor. In fact, for people who know Augusta Savage, the mention of her name immediately brings to mind an image of Gamin. The word means street urchin and the sculpture was meant to represent the young African American men who roamed the streets of Harlem and to give them racial pride and dignity.

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