The son of a Methodist Episcopal minister, Beauford Delaney demonstrated a penchant for art making at a young age—shaping figures from red clay in the parsonage yard and drawing Bible characters on his Sunday school papers. In 1923 he left his family home in Knoxville to study art in Boston. He then made his way to New York City in 1929, just at the moment when the Harlem Renaissance was waning and the Great Depression was beginning. He supported himself with various small jobs while painting portraits, interiors, and urban street scenes that focused on the poor and downtrodden.