VanDerZee, Photographer: 1886-1983

200 Pages·1993·29.171 MB·English

by  Deborah Willis, Deborah Willis-Thomas

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PHOTOGRAPHER
1886 1983
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James VanDerZee (1886-1983) was the first
great African American photographer of the
twentieth century. By any measure of achieve-
ment, he also deserves to be counted among the
masters of the medium. His career spanned a
remarkable eighty years, from his first pho-
— —
tographs taken at the turn of the century of
family and friends in Lenox, Massachusetts,
where he grewup, to his beautiful late portraits,
made when he was in his nineties, of Bill Cosby,
Eubie Blake, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and others.
VanDerZee was best known, however, for the
thousands of photographs that he took between
the wars in New York's Harlem, where he ran a
commercial photographic studio: portraits of
celebrities and community leaders, children and
families, brides and grooms; haunting memorial
portraits ofthe dead; documentary photographs,
including a remarkable series made for Marcus
Garvey in 1924; and photographs of nudes and
humorous or delightfully whimsical subjects
made for calendars and posters. In VanDerZee's
photographs, the Harlem Renaissance comes
alive as a time of achievement, idealism, and
material success.
VanDerZee is the first survey of his work in
more than twenty years, and it reproduces the
late portraits for the first time. It includes
many of his best-known photographs, as well as
new discoveries never before published, with
careful documentation. Deborah Willis-
Braithwaite, the author ofBlack Photographers,
1840-1988, shows how VanDerZee used his
artistic powers and photographic vision to shape
a collective image of his world. In a biographi-
cal essay, Rodger C. Birt, Associate Professor of
Humanities at San Francisco State University,
tells the moving story of VanDerZee's career,
including the discovery of his photographs by
the world outside Harlem in 1969 and its
impact on his life.
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BOSTON
PUBLIC
LIBRARY

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1886 1983
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DEBORAH WILLIS-BRAITHWAITE
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY BY RODGER BIRT
C.
HARRY N. ABRAMS, INC., PUBLISHERS
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY,
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
http://archive.org/details/vanderzeephotogrOOwill
;
VanDi rZet , Photographer: 1886-1983 is published on the occasion
of an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, D.< '.. < October 22, 1993-February 13, 1994
Lenders to the Exhibition
Anion Carter Museum, Fort Worth. Texas
Anthony Barboxa Photos, New York City
Consolidated Freightways, Inc., Palo Alto. California
Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York City
Alfred Forrest and Eloise Skelton-Forrest
Spike Lee
Terry Mansky
Martin Fine Art Photography, !hevy Chase, Maryland
(
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York City
The Museum of Modern Art, New York City
Dr. Regenia A. Perry
A&M
Prairie View University, Texas
The Studio Museum in Harlem. New York City
Donna Mussenden VanDerZee
Page 2: Self-portrait, 1922. Donna Mussenden VanDerZee
projectmanagers:
Beverly JonesCox, Eric Himmel, and Naomi Warner
designer:
Raymond Hooper
P.
Library of ( Congress ( 'alalo<rin»-in Publication I)ata
Willis-Thomas, Deborah. 1948-
VanDerZee: photographer, 1886-1983
Deborah Willis-Braithwaite
biographical essay by Rodger C. Birt.
p. cm.
In association with the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
[SBNO 8109-3923-1
—
1. Portrait photog—raphy—Exhibitions. 2. Afro-Americans N—ew York
\" Y. -Portraits —Exhibitions. :>.—Harlem (New York, N.Y.) Social
life and customs Pictorial works Exhibitions. 4. Van Der Zee.
James. 1886-1983—Exhibitions. I. Title.
TR(iS0AV:,4 1993
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CIP
Photographs copyright © 1993 Donna Mussenden VanDerZee
Text copyrighl © 199:5 Smithsonian Institution. All rights reserved
Published in 1993 by Harry X. Abrams, Incorporated, New York
A Times Mirror Company
All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may be
reproduced wthout the written permission of the publisher
Printed and bound in Japan
CON
E N T S
FOREWORD
ALAN FERN
6
THEY KNEW THEIR NAMES
DEBORAH WILLIS-BRAITHW
A T E
I
8
A LIFE IN AMERICAN PH T O G R A P Y
II
RODGER BIRT
C.
26
PLATES
75
NOTES
188
BIBLIOGRAPHY
192
FOREWORD
lmost fromtheclayheopened astudioin
Harlem in 1912, James VanDerZee attained a local reputation that lasted
formorethantwodecades. AfterWorld War II,clients proved hardtocome
by, and hisworkwent intoeclipse. Itonly becameknowntoawideraudience
through the controversial exhibition "Harlem On My Mind," which took
place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1969, when the
artist waseighty-tw< yearsold. Sincethen aselected portionofVanDerZees
>
workhas become familiar. Now, at last, we are privilegedtobeabletoseehis
career from start to finish, and to fully comprehend the considerable
achievement that emerged from his long, productive life.
Over the past several years, the National Portrait Gallery has devoted a
series ofexhibitions to the work of individual photographers. Photographic
portraits by Carl Van Vechten, Irving Penn, Annie Leibovitz, Arnold New-
man, Richard Avedon, Julia Margaret Cameron, Mathew Brady (and his
studio), and the pioneer daguerreotypist Robert Cornelius have been gath-
ered to show how approaches to a familiar genre can vary. Each of these
exhibitionshad in common workof high qualityand individuality,andeach
dealt (at least in part with the depiction of nationally recognizable sub-
I
jects. Even if judged only by these criteria, the work of James VanDerZee
fully merits inclusion in this series.
But VanDerZee brings other dimensions into the picture, making this
collectionofwork fundamentallydifferent fromanyotherwehaveexplored
so far. He was an African American. Camera and film may be color-blind,
but sitters and publishers are not; surely VanDerZee brought a special
insight into the lives and feelings of his subjects, while the nature of the
commissions he received forced him to develop an eloquent and individual
mode of expression. And the breadth of his experiences, from a compara-
tively sheltered childhood in small-town New England to his stimulating
confrontation with the Harlem Renaissance, surely informed his aesthetic
sensibility and his iconography