james van der zee photo$

These photographs are by James Van Der Zee. He was born in Lenox, Massachusetts and his parents worked for president Ulysses S. Grant in New York City. He moved to New York at 29.  He lived in Harlem and had his own studio during the Harlem Renaissance. He took thousands of pictures of African Americans of all social classes. He mostly took indoor portraits although he took a few pictures of Harlem life. James Van Der Zee produced the the best documentation of the Harlem Renaissance. He and his work were forgotten for many years until 1969 when the Metropolitan Museum of Art had an exhibition called Harlem On My Mind that featured his photographs. 

These three photographs show the class difference of people who lived in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance. The first depicts a rich African American woman reading. Her pose is stiff and her face serious. The room she is in, probably her home is richly decorated, as is her dress. This woman shows the upperclass of the Harlem Renaissance. The seconds shows a young man. He is very different. His pose is relaxed. There is a cat on his lap and his pants are dirty. The third photo is more of a stylized portrait. All of these photos show the Harlem Renaissance themes of pride the desire to reconstruct the"negro." The fact the they all went to get portraits taken of themselves show this. Not that long ago from when these were taken, African Americans getting protraits of themselves was not something that would happen. James Van Der Zee changed that.