Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin: Through the Unusual Door examines the 38-year relationship between painter Beauford Delaney and writer James Baldwin and the ways their ongoing intellectual exchange shaped each other’s creative output and worldview. It documents the groundbreaking 2020 exhibition organized by the Knoxville Museum of Art, and seeks to identify and disentangle the skein of influences that grew over and around a complex, lifelong relationship using a selection of Delaney’s works that reflects the powerful presence of Baldwin in Delaney’s life. Through the Unusual Door includes essays by Mary Campbell, whose research currently focuses on Baldwin and Delaney within the context of the Civil Rights Movement; Glenn Ligon, an internationally acclaimed, New York-based artist with intimate knowledge of Baldwin’s writings, Delaney’s art, and American history and society; Levi Prombaum, a curatorial assistant at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum who did his doctoral research at University College London on Delaney’s portraits of Baldwin; and Stephen Wicks, the KMA’s Barbara & Bernard Bernstein Curator, who has guided the museum’s curatorial department for over 25 years and was instrumental in building the world’s largest and most comprehensive public collection of Delaney’s art.

Moderated by Kristi McMillan, director of learning & engagement, with special guest Mary Campbell, PhD. Presented in conjunction with Beauford Delaney’s Metamorphosis into Freedom, with generous support provided by Art Bridges.