ABSTRACT

James Van Der Zee was the leading photographer of the Harlem Renaissance. His prints, negatives, and glass plates, numbering some 75,000, document the spirit of the movement and were designed to foster pride in being black in the United States between World War I and World War II. Van Der Zee’s images combine social documentation and portraiture with an aesthetic sensibility influenced partly by the portraits of the old masters, partly by the soft focus of impressionism, and partly by the Victorian tableau. His photographs constitute a panorama of life in Harlem: marriage portraits, mothers and children, clergymen, members of fraternal orders (he himself was an Elk), politicians, entertainers, artists, athletes, schoolchildren, funerals, marches, political rallies, pool halls, social teas, barbershops, drugstores, and domestic interiors.