Lingerie
Maker
Roy DeCarava
(American, 1919 - 2009)
Date1950s
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 8 3/4 × 12 7/8 in. (22.2 × 32.7 cm)
Sheet: 9 1/16 × 13 3/16 in. (23 × 33.5 cm)
Sheet: 9 1/16 × 13 3/16 in. (23 × 33.5 cm)
Credit LineGift of the Estate of Lester and Betty Guttman
Object number2014.256
Object TypePhotographs
On View
Not on viewBorn in New York City’s Harlem, Roy DeCarava first purchased a camera to document his work in printmaking. By 1949, however, photography had replaced printmaking, painting, and drawing as his preferred artistic medium. After 1950, DeCarava began experimenting with a darker tonal range. In his photographs, true blacks and true whites are rare; rather, his work is characterized by a range of dark grays.
Throughout his career, DeCarava produced bodies of work that explored people’s daily lives, specifically those of African Americans living in New York. Although his works have a humanist outlook, his artistic interpretation of Harlem set him apart from the many social documentary photographs of the neighborhood taken by others. He refused to be a part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 1969 exhibition Harlem on My Mind on the grounds that it misconceived African American artists and marginalized photography as an art form.
Throughout his career, DeCarava produced bodies of work that explored people’s daily lives, specifically those of African Americans living in New York. Although his works have a humanist outlook, his artistic interpretation of Harlem set him apart from the many social documentary photographs of the neighborhood taken by others. He refused to be a part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 1969 exhibition Harlem on My Mind on the grounds that it misconceived African American artists and marginalized photography as an art form.
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