JOSEPH DELANEY (1904 - 1991)
Wild Joke.

Oil on wood panel, 1940. 533x597 mm; 21x23½ inches. Signed in oil, lower right recto. Signed and titled in ink, verso.

Provenance: the estate of the artist; private collection.

This expressionist painting by Joseph Delaney records a "wild" scene from the bar life of the West Village in the 1940s. Delaney had became a long time resident of the Village shortly after moving to New York to join his brother Beauford in 1930. Frederick Moffatt describes how Delaney lived in various garrets and lofts within a small area of the Village and Soho between 1931 and 1959. In 1940, Delaney lived on Sullivan Street, near West Third Street. From 1934 to 1940, Delaney also worked on various WPA projects in New York including the Index of Design for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Pier 72 mural, and with Norman Lewis on the Story of the Recorded Word mural at the New York Public Library. Moffatt p. 167.