Recommended: A Bright Portrait of James Baldwin

For a while now I’ve subscribed to Kimberly Drew’s Something I Saw Today newsletter, where she emails a picture of an artwork per day. Years on, this is my favorite missive: a painting of James Baldwin by Beauford Delaney. For some reason I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. Actually, there are a couple of reasons! That yellow suit! That smirk! The texture background! Yellow Wallpaper who?

I especially love how Delaney’s use of color gives a playful spirit to depict an impressive intellectual mind. The usual move is present great minds in black and white portraiture, and Baldwin has certainly had plenty of those. Still, it’s refreshing to see him surrounded by color, buoyed by a world he so obviously loved. It’s often (and justly so) that we bring up heavy things when we talk about Baldwin, but it’s hard not to look at this painting and feel cheerful. The lesson here, I think, is that you can have both.