James Van Der Zee
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James Augustus Van Der Zee (June 29, 1886 – May 15, 1983) was an American photographer best known for his portraits of
black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...
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s. He was a leading figure in the
Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African-American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics, and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the ti ...
. Aside from the artistic merits of his work, Van Der Zee produced the most comprehensive documentation of the period. Among his most famous subjects during this time were
Marcus Garvey Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. (17 August 188710 June 1940) was a Jamaican political activist. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) (commonly known a ...
,
Bill "Bojangles" Robinson Bill "Bojangles" Robinson (born Luther Robinson; May 25, 1878 – November 25, 1949), was an American tap dancer, actor, and singer, the best known and the most highly paid black entertainer in the United States during the first half of the 20 ...
and
Countee Cullen Countee Cullen (born Countee LeRoy Porter; May 30, 1903 – January 9, 1946) was an American poet, novelist, children's writer, and playwright, particularly well known during the Harlem Renaissance. Early life Childhood Countee LeRoy Porter ...
.


Biography

Born in
Lenox, Massachusetts Lenox is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The town is in Western Massachusetts and part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Pittsfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 5,095 at the 2020 United States census ...
, Van Der Zee demonstrated an early gift for music, and was initially aspired to career as a professional violinist. Van Der Zee's second interest was in photography. He bought his first camera when he was a teenager, and improvised a darkroom in his parents' home. He took hundreds of photographs of his family as well as his hometown of Lenox. Van Der Zee was one of the first people to provide an early documentation of his community life in small town New England. In 1906, he moved with his father and brother to
Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater ...
in New York City, where he worked as a waiter and
elevator operator An elevator operator (North American English), liftman (in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English, usually lift attendant), or lift girl (in British English), is a person specifically employed to operate a manually operat ...
. By now Van Der Zee was a skilled pianist and aspiring professional violinist. He would become the primary creator and one of the five performers in a group known as the Harlem Orchestra. In March 1907, Van Der Zee married Kate L. Brown and they moved back to Lenox to have their daughter, Rachel, born in September. Soon after, they moved to
Phoebus, Virginia Phoebus (known as Chesapeake City from 1871–1899) is a formerly incorporated town now part of the present-day city of Hampton, Virginia, on the Virginia Peninsula. In 1900, it was named in honor of local businessman Harrison Phoebus (1840– ...
. In 1908, their son, Emile, was born but died within a year from
pneumonia Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...
. In 1915, he moved to
Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, the county seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, and a principal city of the New York metropolitan area. ...
, where he took a job in a portrait studio, first as a darkroom assistant and then as a
portraitist A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better re ...
. That same year, he converted to
Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
and began taking assignments from the Church. He returned to Harlem the following year, just as large numbers of Black immigrants and migrants were arriving into that part of the city. He set up a studio at the Toussaint Conservatory of Art and Music with his sister, Jennie Louise Van Der Zee, also known as Madame E Toussaint, who had founded the conservatory in 1911. In 1916, Van Der Zee and Gaynella Greenlee launched the Guarantee Photo Studio on West 125th Street in Harlem. They married in 1918. His business boomed during
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, and the portraits he shot from this period until 1945 have demanded the majority of critical attention. In 1919, he photographed the victory parade of the returning 369th Infantry Regiment, a predominantly African American unit sometimes called the "Harlem Hellfighters." During the height of his popularity in 1927, his daughter Rachel, aged 19, died of
appendicitis Appendicitis is inflammation of the Appendix (anatomy), appendix. Symptoms commonly include right lower abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, fever and anorexia (symptom), decreased appetite. However, approximately 40% of people do not have these t ...
while in
Portland, Maine Portland is the List of municipalities in Maine, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maine and the county seat, seat of Cumberland County, Maine, Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 at the 2020 census. The Portland metropolit ...
. Van Der Zee photographed her funeral; he incorporated poems and heavenly imagery into the final prints. During the 1920s and 1930s, he produced hundreds of photographs recording Harlem's growing middle class. Its residents entrusted the visual documentation of their weddings, funerals, celebrities and sports stars, and social life to his carefully composed images. Quickly Van Der Zee became the most successful photographer in Harlem. Among his many renowned subjects were poet
Countee Cullen Countee Cullen (born Countee LeRoy Porter; May 30, 1903 – January 9, 1946) was an American poet, novelist, children's writer, and playwright, particularly well known during the Harlem Renaissance. Early life Childhood Countee LeRoy Porter ...
, dancer Bill ("Bojangles") Robinson, Charles M. "Daddy" Grace,
Joe Louis Joseph Louis Barrow (May 13, 1914 – April 12, 1981) was an American professional boxer who competed from 1934 to 1951. Nicknamed "the Brown Bomber", Louis is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential boxers of all time. He r ...
,
Florence Mills Florence Mills (born Florence Winfrey; January 25, 1896 – November 1, 1927), billed as the "Queen of Happiness", was an American cabaret singer, dancer, and comedian. Life and career Florence Mills (Florence Winfrey) was born a daughter of for ...
, and
black nationalist Black nationalism is a nationalist movement which seeks representation for Black people as a distinct national identity, especially in racialized, colonial and postcolonial societies. Its earliest proponents saw it as a way to advocate for ...
leader
Marcus Garvey Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. (17 August 188710 June 1940) was a Jamaican political activist. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) (commonly known a ...
. By the early 1930s Van Der Zee found it harder to make an income from his work in photography, partly because of the strained economic circumstances of many of his customers and partly because the growing popularity of personal cameras reduced the need for professional photography. Van Der Zee worked predominantly in the studio and used a variety of props, including architectural elements, backdrops, and costumes, to achieve stylized
tableaux vivant A (; often shortened to ; ; ) is a static scene containing one or more actors or models. They are stationary and silent, usually in costume, carefully posed, with props and/or scenery, and may be theatrically illuminated. It thus combines ...
in keeping with late Victorian and
Edwardian In the United Kingdom, the Edwardian era was a period in the early 20th century that spanned the reign of King Edward VII from 1901 to 1910. It is commonly extended to the start of the First World War in 1914, during the early reign of King Ge ...
visual traditions. Sitters often copied celebrities of the 1920s and 1930s in their poses and expressions, and he retouched negatives and prints heavily to achieve an aura of glamour. He also created funeral photographs between the wars. These works were later collected in ''The Harlem Book of the Dead'' (1978), with a foreword by
Toni Morrison Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist and editor. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically accl ...
. In 1982, at age 96, Van Der Zee photographed 21-year-old painter
Jean-Michel Basquiat Jean-Michel Basquiat (; December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the neo-expressionism movement. Basquiat first achieved notoriety in the late 1970s as part of the graffiti ...
for the January 1983 issue of ''Interview'' magazine. Van Der Zee died in Washington, D.C., on May 15, 1983. Ten years later the
National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: * National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra * National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London ...
exhibited his work as a posthumous tribute. In 1984 Van Der Zee was inducted into the
International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum The International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum in St. Louis, Missouri, honors those who have made great contributions to the field of photography. History In 1977, the first Hall of Fame and Museum opened in Santa Barbara, California, as ...
.


Works


Commission from UNIA

In the spring and summer of 1924, Van Der Zee worked to document the members and activities of
Marcus Garvey Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. (17 August 188710 June 1940) was a Jamaican political activist. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) (commonly known a ...
's
Universal Negro Improvement Association The Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) is a black nationalist fraternal organization founded by Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican immigrant to the United States, and his then-wife Amy Ashwood Garvey. ...
(UNIA). He took thousands of photographs on this assignment, some of which were featured in a calendar issued to members in 1925. Fulfilling Garvey's wishes, Van Der Zee's job was to project a positive image of the Association, especially to emphasize the strength and social standing of its membership, the so-called Garveyites. Nowhere in Van Der Zee's visual record was there any hint of the controversy surrounding Garvey in the early 1920s, a period when the leader was subject to public interrogation, quarrels with the writer and philosopher
W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relativel ...
, and legal proceedings against him on charges of mail fraud.


''Harlem on My Mind''

In 1969, Van Der Zee gained worldwide recognition when his work was featured in the exhibition ''Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America, 1900–1968'' at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
in New York. His inclusion in the exhibition was somewhat by accident. In December 1967, a researcher for the exhibition (and a photographer in his own right), Reginald McGhee, came across Van Der Zee's Harlem studio and asked if he happened to have any photographs from the 1920s and '30s. In a story recounted by photo historian Rodger C. Birt, Van Der Zee showed him the boxes and boxes of negatives he had kept from this period. These photographs would become the core of ''Harlem on My Mind''—and the feature of the exhibit that critics routinely praised as the show's biggest revelation. As art historian
Sharon Patton Sharon F. Patton (born 1944) is an American historian who specializes in African art. Early life and education She was born in southern part of Chicago in 1944, where she received her bachelor's degree in 1966 from Roosevelt University. Patton at ...
observed, Van Der Zee not only documented the Harlem Renaissance, but also helped create it. ''Harlem on My Mind'' marked a controversy between the Met and a number of practicing artists then living and working in Harlem. Painters including
Romare Bearden Romare Bearden (, ) (September 2, 1911 – March 12, 1988) was an American artist, author, and songwriter. He worked with many types of media including cartoons, oils, and collages. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden grew up in New York C ...
and
Benny Andrews Benny Andrews (November 13, 1930 – November 10, 2006) was an African-American artist, activist and educator. Born in Plainview, Georgia, Andrews earned a BFA in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1958, and soon after ...
protested the show for its emphasis on social history and experience, at the expense—as they viewed it—of interest in the artistic legacy of black New York artists. The Metropolitan rejected Harlem residents from planning the exhibition and utilized photography as the sole method of representation, excluding all sculptures, paintings, drawings, and prints by Harlem artists. At the time, Harlem artists — and the art world at large — did not view photography as an art form, but as a form of documentation. In this way, the Metropolitan received criticism for framing Harlem as an ethnographic study rather than a living community with thriving artistry. On opening day, a picket line formed in front of the Met. Andrews carried a sign reading: "Visit The Metropolitan Museum of Photography."


Photographic techniques and artistry

Works by Van Der Zee are artistic as well as technically proficient. His work was in high demand, in part due to his experimentation and skill in double exposures and in retouching negatives of children. One theme that recurs in his photographs was the emergent
black middle class The African-American middle class consists of African-Americans who have middle-class status within the American class structure. It is a societal level within the African-American community that primarily began to develop in the early 1960s, ...
, which he captured using traditional techniques in often idealistic images. Negatives were retouched to show glamor and an aura of perfection. This affected the likeness of the person photographed, but he felt each photo should transcend the subject. His carefully posed family portraits reveal that the family unit was an important aspect of Van Der Zee's life. "I tried to see that every picture was better-looking than the person ... I had one woman come to me and say 'Mr. VanDerZee my friends tell that's a nice picture, but it doesn't look like you.' That was my style", said VanDerZee. Van Der Zee sometimes combined several photos in one image, for example by adding a ghostly child to an image of a wedding to suggest the couple's future, or by superimposing a funeral image upon a photograph of a dead woman to give the feeling of her eerie presence. Van Der Zee said, "I wanted to make the camera take what I thought should be there." Van Der Zee was a working photographer who supported himself through portraiture, and he devoted time to his professional work before his more artistic compositions. Many famous residents of Harlem were among his subjects. In addition to portraits, Van Der Zee photographed organizations, events, and other businesses.


Exhibitions


Solo exhibitions

Source: * 1970: Lenox Library, Massachusetts * 1971: Studio Museum in Harlem, New York * 1974: Lunn Gallery/Graphics International, Washington, D.C. * 1979: ''The Legacy of James Van Der Zee: A Portrait of Black Americans'', Alternative Center for International Arts, New York and Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington * 1983: Camera Club of New York and Idaho State University, Pocatello * 1987: Deborah Sharp Gallery, New York * 1994: Retrospective, National Portrait Gallery Washington, D.C., and Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York


Selected group exhibitions

Source: * 1969: ''Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America 1900–1968'', Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York * 1978: Lunn Gallery, Washington, D.C. * 1979: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and ''Fleeting Gestures: Dance Photographs'', International Center of Photography, New York (traveling) * 1982: Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn, Germany * 1985: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art * 1987: Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (traveling)


Publications

* *


Further reading

* * * *
Colin Westerbeck Colin Leslie Westerbeck Jr. is a curator, writer, and teacher of the history of photography. Before moving to Los Angeles, where he has taught at UCLA and USC, he was curator of photography at the Art Institute of Chicago. He is a regular contri ...
: ''The James VanDerZee Studios'' with an Essay by
Dawoud Bey Dawoud Bey (born David Edward Smikle; November 25, 1953) is an American photographer, artist and educator known for his large-scale art photography and street photography portraits, including American adolescents in relation to their community ...
.
The Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park. Its collection, stewarded by 11 curatoria ...
, Chicago 2004, . * Boone,Emilie (2023): A Nimble Arc: James VanDerZee and Photography. Duke University Press. .


References


External links


Van Der Zee at Biography.com



James Van Der Zee in the Minneapolis Institute of Art
Minneapolis, MN {{DEFAULTSORT:Van Der Zee, James 1886 births 1983 deaths Photographers from New York City African-American photographers People from Lenox, Massachusetts Harlem Renaissance American portrait photographers 20th-century American photographers 20th-century American male artists Photographers from Massachusetts 20th-century African-American artists African-American Catholics