Beauford Delaney was one of only two individuals who Georgia O’Keeffe depicted in her career (the other was Alfred Stieglitz’s niece, Dorothy Schubart), and she drew five portraits of him in the early 1940s. Delaney has been described as a rather introverted yet influential artist who experienced various forms of oppression as a Black gay man. A regular at Stieglitz’s New York gallery, An American Place, Delaney was particularly impressed by O’Keeffe’s work, which he described as “alive and quite amazing.” O’Keeffe, in turn, deeply respected Delaney’s painting and wrote a tribute to him in the catalogue for his 1973 solo exhibition at Galerie Darthea Speyer in Paris.