Wells father was a Baptist minister and his mother a teacher. Wells mother was his inspiration, she encourage him to assist with her art instruction in her kindergarten classes. Wells won first prize in painting and second prize in woodworking at the Florida State Fair. “He obtained his training at Lincoln University and Columbia University and at the National Academy of Design” (96). After graduation, Wells created block prints to illustrate articles and publications such as Willis Richardson’s Plays and Pageants of Negro Life. His work was included in an exhibition of, “International Modernist”, In April 1929 the New Art Circle of Gallery owned by J.B. Neumann. Later in 1929, he was invited to join the Art facility at Howard University as a crafts teacher. He taught clay modeling, ceramics, sculpture, metal and block printing. It took him two years to convince the school that he and linoleum cutting belonged in the College of Fine Arts. In the 1940’s Wells produced many compositions on African themes, he was well known for using several …show more content…
He would receive commissions for his portraits from his friends and admirers including writer, Henry Miller, Marian Anderson, and Al Hirschfeld. These payments allowed him to maintain the cost of his studio and art supplies by his fellow peers who took interest in his Abstract representation know later as abstract expressionism. He had reproduced tight friendships with writers such as James Baldwin whom he would later paint a portrait of. Delaney-gained inclusive acknowledgement for his pastels portraits of well-known African Americans such as W.E. B. Du Bois and Duke Ellington. In 1954 Delaney moved to Paris and spent his remaining years till his death on March 26, 1979. Delaney was known for his friendly nature with people and his love for mankind manifest in his paintings and drawings that stretched from the representational to the