Couple with a Cadillac, 1932, by James Van Der Zee
James VanDerZee was an acclaimed, largely self-taught, African American photographer who documented the lives of the urban middle class. Born June 29, 1886 in Lenox, Massachusetts, VanDerZee was raised to appreciate music and art; eventually forming a talent for photography. By fifth grade, VanDerZee was given his first camera. He took hundreds of pictures of his family and friends, and developed them himself. In 1906, at age 20, he moved to Harlem, New York where he played in the Fletcher Henderson’s band and the John Wanamaker Orchestra. But, to keep a steady income, VanDerZee returned to his childhood talent—photography.
Self-Portrait, c. 1920, by James Van Der Zee
In 1914, he signed on as a darkroom technician in a department store. He would fill in behind the camera at times, learning the fundamentals of photography. By 1916 (when Harlem was the haven for African Americans), VanDerZee opened his own studio called “Guarantee Photo”. He photographed celebrities such as heavyweight champion Jack Johnson and entertainer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. His photographs also consisted of African American clubs, lodges, sport teams, weddings, funerals and portraits of people simply wanting a picture of themselves “dressed to the nines”. VanDerZee aimed to perfect his subjects through styled wardrobes, customized settings and retouching negatives. “I tried to see that every picture was better-looking than the person. That was my style,” said VanDerZee.
Barefoot Prophet, 1929, by James Van Der Zee
In 1932, his studio struggled through The Great Depression which forced him out of photography for over 30 years. In 1968, VanDerZee was rediscovered when Reginald McGhee, a photo researcher, stumbled upon his collection of over 75,000 photographs covering six decades of African American urban life. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York featured the photographs in an exhibition called “Harlem on My Mind”. The exhibition brought VanDerZee renewed attention and national recognition. In the 1980’s, many years after the Harlem Renaissance, celebrities such as Bill Cosby, Lou Rawls, and Muhammad Ali, commissioned VanDerZee to photograph them.
VanDerZee’s career of photography lasted until his death in 1983 at the age of 96. James VanDerZee left behind a historical record of the pride and beauty of African Americans in Harlem.
Published by Clarke Art Consulting © 2010
[...] Van Der Zee was the premier photographer of Harlem – the cultural, entertainment and literary center of the universe for black people during the 1920s and 1930s. It was a place where they could just about shut out the ugliness that sought to define them as people. When writer Zora Neale Hurston arrived there in 1925, she said there were so many black people that she thought it was a parade. I learned this bit of information from a PBS documentary on the writer. [...]
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