Celebrating June PRIDE
[Lawrence Calcagno; Beauford Delaney’s portrait of Calcagno; Calcagno’s portrait of Delaney; Delaney’s portrait of James Baldwin AND: James Baldwin, Calcagno, and Delaney in the Mediterranean……..]
Lawrence Calcagno grew up in Northern California, joined the Army during WW2, came to the School on the GI Bill, and studied painting with Mark Rothko, Clifford Still, Ed Courbet, and Richard Diebenkorn. Calcagno was very much admired on both coasts and in that macho world of Abstract Expressionism. A long time teacher in the U.S., Calcagno also lived in Europe where he met and became close with the artist Beauford Delaney. Calcagno described their relationship as “deathless kinship that is constant [and] is always alive and close between us.” Delaney’s biographer describes their relationship as “intellectually intense, but for the most part physically platonic.”
With permission, SFAA is re-posting the emails Jeff Gunderson Librarian/Archivist Anne Bremer Memorial Library has been sending out since March 2020. Please enjoy this magnificent archive.