Knoxville-born Joseph Delaney served as artist in residence at the university from 1986 until his death in 1991. The younger brother of Beauford Delaney, Joseph dropped out of school in 1919 after completing the ninth grade when his father, a well-respected Methodist minister, died.
Delaney worked as a caddy at Cherokee Country Club and as a bellhop at the Farragut Hotel before taking a train to Kentucky to work in the mines. Denied employment in the mines, he went to Cincinnati and then (1925) to Chicago. He joined the Chicago National Guard, made friends with Albert Ammonds and other jazz musicians, and continued painting. He studied art through the LaSalle Extension School. In late 1928 he moved back to Knoxville and sold insurance. In 1929 he organized and led a troop of black Boy Scouts, in association with Vine Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church. (Knoxville area Boy Scout annual encampments were desegregated in 1955; the inner city program instituted in 1961 authorized official recognition of African American troops.) Delaney created the national Boy Scout poster for 1932.
In 1930 he moved to New York to join his brother. He opened his own studio, enrolled in the Art Students League, and studied with Alexander Brooke, Thomas Hart Benton, and George Bridgeman. In 1932 he exhibited his work in the first Washington Square Outdoor Art Show. For more than 40 years, he worked as a sketch artist at the show, drawing notable visitors such as Ertha Kitt, Arlene Frances, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Tallulah Bankhead. From 1934 to 1940, he worked for the WPA on various New York City projects, including the Pier 72 Mural. He worked with artists such as Jackson Pollack, Reginald Marsh, and Ernest Crichlow. In 1942 he won a Rosenwald Fellowship. In 1964–65 he worked as a sketch artist for the New Orleans exhibit, and later, the Ghana exhibit at the New York World’s Fair.
In 1970 UT held an exhibit of his work at the McClung Museum, which was arranged by the College of Arts and Sciences’ Black Studies Committee. The committee, McClung Museum, the Art Department, the Division of International Education, and the Black Students Union sponsored the exhibit. The SGA allocated $2,000 toward expenses for the show. Following the show, UT purchased V-J Day, Times Square, which was placed in the university center.
Delaney worked for the Comprehensive Employment Training Act from 1978 to 1980 as an artist in residence at Henry Street Settlement. In 1986 UT exhibited Joseph Delaney: A Retrospective as part of its Homecoming ’86 celebration. Delaney re-met Alex Haley at the opening reception, and Haley suggested to UT that Delaney be asked to become an artist in residence. The university provided a rent-free cottage on Twenty-Second Street and a stipend. Delaney drew with the figure classes in the evening and met with students and faculty.
Upon his death, he left UT a one-third interest in his estate—mostly his paintings and drawings and some of his brother’s.