Man In Window
Maker
Roy DeCarava
(American, 1919 - 2009)
Date1978, printed 1982
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 13 × 8 5/8 in. (33 × 21.9 cm)
Sheet: 14 × 11 in. (35.6 × 27.9 cm)
Sheet: 14 × 11 in. (35.6 × 27.9 cm)
Credit LineGift of the Estate of Lester and Betty Guttman
Object number2014.257
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, as seen here. 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.