Site 1: The Delaney Museum
1935 Dandridge Ave, Knoxville, TN 37915
You are currently located at the Delaney Home. This is the lasy remaining ancestral home of the Delaney Family.
At A Glance
1935
Dandridge Avenue
1
Ancestral Home
2
Internationally known Artists
Future
Delaney museum at Beck
It began with a family
The Delaneys
Rev. Samuel Delaney, known as Brother Delaney, was a circuit riding preacher for the Methodist Episcopal churches in Knoxville and Jefferson City. He married Delia Johnson Delaney, a gifted seamstress and quilt maker on April 9, 1885 and the two settled in Knoxville and reared their children at 815 East Vine Avenue. They had ten children: Carabelle, Sterling, Samuel Emery, Percy, Clifford Henry, Ougust Mae, Marion, Beauford, Joseph, and Naomi. Only four children will survive adulthood, Sterling, Samuel Emery, Beauford and Joseph.
Remembering & Preserving Legacy
Two homes.
One enduring story.
The Delaney story begins at 815 East Vine Avenue, where Rev. John Samuel and Delia Johnson Delaney raised ten children. That childhood home was lost to Urban Renewal, but the family’s story still has a place in Knoxville.
01
THE ORIGINAL HOME
815 East Vine Avenue
The place where the Delaney family grew up no longer stands. Its loss helps reveal the human cost of Urban Renewal and why preserving memory in place matters.
02
LAST REMAINING ANCESTRAL HOME
1935 Dandridge Avenue
Purchased by elder brother Samuel Emery Delaney, this house became the family’s final ancestral home in Knoxville. Today, Beck is preserving it for the future.
The Delaney Story
A family timeline
From a family home in Knoxville to artistic legacies that reached New York and Paris, the Delaney story is one of faith, creativity, perseverance, and enduring light.
- 01
1865
Delia Johnson is born
Delia Johnson was born into slavery in Richmond, Virginia, on February 1, 1865.
- 02
1885
A family begins
Rev. John Samuel Delaney and Delia Johnson married on April 9 and made their home in Knoxville.
- 03
1901–1904
Two artists are born
Beauford was born in 1901 and Joseph in 1904. Art, faith, family, and community shaped their early lives.
- 04
815 East Vine Avenue
The childhood home
The Delaneys raised their children in the heart of a thriving Black community later destroyed by Urban Renewal.
- 05
1935 Dandridge Avenue
The surviving home
Samuel Emery Delaney purchased the house that became the family’s last remaining ancestral home in Knoxville.
- 06
Today
A museum takes shape
Beck is restoring the home as a museum devoted to the Delaney family, their art, and the community that helped form them.
FOREVER A SHINING LIGHT
Beauford Delaney
A leading American modernist whose journey from Knoxville to New York and Paris transformed portraiture and abstraction through luminous color.
Beauford Delaney in his studio, Paris, France, 1972. Galerie Darthea Speyer records, 1953-2010. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution; Courtesy of Galerie Darthea Speyer and Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY.
A GALLOPING SPIRIT
Joseph Delaney
A prolific painter of people and city life who returned to Knoxville in 1986 and served as artist-in-residence at the University of Tennessee.
Joseph Delaney in Studio, ca. 1982. Courtesy of Bastes College.
PRESERVING THE FUTURE
The museum is taking shape.
The restoration of the Delaney Home will preserve an extraordinary piece of Knoxville history and create a place where art, family, and community memory can continue to inspire.
• Latest Update
Restoration Work Is Underway
