History-defining African American artists, from Beauford Delaney to Charles White and more

‘I am very much a historian, and very focused on the history of African Americans, in this country and elsewhere. I grew up in the South, in Memphis Tennessee, where there were no museums that people of colour could go to, period. I saw that important pieces of our culture were going to get lost if someone did not start to assemble these works,’ explains distinguished entrepreneur and patron of the arts Robert ‘Bob’ C. Davidson Jr.

Chair of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Board of Commissioners, Davidson and his wife, Faye, have been meticulously collecting works that tell the story of African American art since the 1970s. With a focus on masterpiece works and a passion for trailblazing artists, they built an unrivalled collection with the long-term view of sharing these works for the education of future generations.  Now, a group of important works comes to Christie’s in Property from the Collection of Robert and Faye Davidson, offered in the 20th Century Evening Sale and the Post-War & Contemporary Art Day Sale, as part of the 20th and 21st Century Art auctions in New York. Further works from the collection will be sold in 19th Century American and Western Art sale on 23 January 2026.

‘Bob and Faye Davidson sought to create a museum-quality collection of African American art ranging across the 19th and 20th centuries. Each of these works are exceptional. And they began collecting them at a time when institutions and museums were not yet focussing on this body of work by these artists,’ says Paige Kestenman, Senior Specialist, American Art, at Christie’s.

The collection includes fascinating works by African American artists dating back to the Federalist era portraitist Joshua Johnson and Hudson River School painter Robert S Duncanson, in addition to Betye Saar, Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden. Bearden’s lively Train Whistle Blues II (1964) is an early collage the artist photocopied and enlarged to create Train Whistle Blues No. 1, which resides in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Works like this one reflect the Davidsons’ high standards and attention to detail, and the upcoming sale offers a rare opportunity to acquire important works of such calibre that come to market infrequently.

‘There are three things that have guided us in our collection that we always go back to,’ Davidson notes. ‘Number one, the work had to be museum quality. We didn’t consider anything that was otherwise. Number two, it had to be a piece that was quintessential to that artist, from the artist’s best period or best work. And number three, we both had to agree on it.’

A focus on portraits

The 1930s and 1940s in New York were a revolutionary time with artists, writers and musicians breaking down what had come before to create a new way. It was also a time of significant upheaval, during the Great Depression and World War II. Amidst the fervour and turmoil, history was being recorded by the pen and brush.

In the midst of this societal change, Beauford Delaney and Charles White represented the struggles of people of the day, elevating them in art, especially Black people. Their art was an essential part of forging a path forwards, away from the persecution of the past towards something new, pictorially and socio-politically. Delaney (1901-1979) was part of the Harlem Renaissance, which saw Black people in a post-slavery United States change their circumstances in ways they had never had the opportunity to before. Born nearly two decades later, White (1918-1979) was exposed to and influenced by the movement while growing up in Chicago. Each went on to cement careers that have left an indelible mark on the history of art.

Many Black artists were emigrating to Europe at this time, attracted by the promise of greater freedoms and opportunities than in the white-male-dominated United States. Delaney, also inspired by the art movements happening in Europe, eventually moved to Paris in the 1950s at age 52. At this time, his paintings of New York and his friends loosened and incorporated Abstract Expressionist elements.  

Delaney’s The Sage Black (1967), purported to be one of the most compelling portraits of his lifelong friend James Baldwin, is a unique representation of the writer, distinguished by its arresting colour, technique, and abstract nature: although Baldwin is clearly recognisable, we can see the lines of the painting starting to move out of representation into abstraction. The work was made fourteen years after Delaney moved to Paris.

‘We were searching very hard and tracked this work down in Paris,’ recalls Davidson (the work was made fourteen years after Delaney moved to Paris). ‘This was before video calls — we fell in love with it from just a photo. We have a picture of it in Delaney’s studio with several other pieces.’

Baldwin’s features appear to almost be subsumed into the background of the painting, the abstractions emblematic of his interior life. Delaney’s portraits of Baldwin span their lives showing the young writer of promise to the radical voice of an age.

‘This work demonstrates the line between Delaney’s earlier, more representational portraiture and his later abstract expressionist type of paintings to create the sort of aura of his close friend and collaborator. It's one of his later works and it's one where we really feel the intensity of James Baldwin's personality, and the duo’s connection, through this all over pattern and abstraction that makes the portrait so compelling,’ Kestenman explains. Davidson speculates he sees as much of the artist’s own portrait in the work as Baldwin.

Charles White’s portraits, aside from their staggering technical prowess, demonstrate a deep respect for his subjects. These are portraits of a people, from the moving drawings of the matriarchs of his family to the archetypes he created in his work including the ever-powerful Black Pope (Sandwich Board Man) (1973, Museum of Modern Art, New York). Making true representations of Black people was so important in contemporary art at that time and White’s figures, so tenderly and intricately realised with such an attention to detail, were seminal to the point of activism. There are also layers to the works; Preacher (Reverend Man)  stands hands by his side, in plain clothing offering the bible he holds up to the viewer.

This work is of extremely high importance in the Davidsons’ collection; not only was White a family friend, Davidson chose Preacher (Reverend Man) as the cover for the exhibition and dinner invitation he staged to celebrate his 50th birthday (a black-tie dinner for 200 close friends no less, held in a gallery with their own collection on display for the group to enjoy — an opportunity Davidson recalls for ‘preserving, informing, educating’).

‘Preacher (Reverend Man) is a member of our family, in many ways. It has been for many years now. It has been a primary source of sharing with our friends, and it has had a prominent place in our home for the last 40 years,’ explains Davidson. ‘Both these pieces represent what we see as the struggle of the Black male in our country. You can see the pain and suffering in the hands [in Preacher (Reverend Man)], in the toils, you can see the kind of life that they had had, and their success despite those trials.’

White was captured by the mural making of Diego Rivera while living in Mexico City with his then wife, the artist Elizabeth Catlett. When he returned to New York, he went on to create his own legacy of mural making. The preparatory sketch Study for 'Mary McLeod Bethune' Mural (1977) depicts four figures at different stages of life and is almost identical to the stunning realised work which can be seen at the Los Angeles Public Library.

Study for ‘Mary McLeod Bethune’ Mural holds particular meaning to Davidson due in part to the background of the subject: Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune was an eminent Black educator and advocate who founded the National Council of Negro Women and served as the director of the Division of Negro Affairs under President Franklin Roosevelt. ‘White executed a mural focused on education and learning—topics especially important to him,’ writes Andrea D. Barnwell in her book, Charles White. Similar motivations have inspired and continue to drive Davidson.

‘There are through lines embodied in this work of what Faye and Bob are striving to do through working with museums and institutions educating future generations through art,’ Kestenman elaborates.

Preserving the history of African American art and educating future generations

It was Los Angeles then Pasadena, where Robert and Faye Davidson reside, that White moved to when he finally left New York for good in 1956. He famously taught at the Otis Art Institute (now Otis College of Art and Design) educating a stellar line up of artists including David Hammons, Judithe Hernández and Kerry James Marshall, who currently has a smash hit exhibition at the Royal Academy in London.

Here we see another throughline, visible in part through the efforts of those, including the Davidsons, who have sought to preserve and safeguard the history of African American art. The couple often loan works to institutions. ‘I’ve been involved with educational institutions personally where, as board chair of two colleges and current chair of the Smithsonian, I’ve encouraged those institutions to focus on what we do about educating our young people in the area of art.’ He adds, ‘I’m very focused on preserving and learning from history. To not repeat some of the things that have happened, and to not forget where you come from. We are standing on the shoulders of all those people who came before.’

‘My wife and I have been collecting for almost 50 years now… Someone could say, ‘Well, if you love these things as much as you do, why are you parting with them? Well, I have philosophy,’ explains Bob. ‘We don’t own anything, we are custodians, these works existed before we had them, and they will exist afterwards. When you have had the privilege of living with them and sharing them with family and friends you have to learn to release them, and let them continue to find their next homes.’