Roy Rudolph DeCarava (December 9, 1919 – October 27, 2009) was an American
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...
. DeCarava received early critical acclaim for his
photography
Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...
, initially engaging and imaging the lives of African Americans and
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
musicians in the communities where he lived and worked. Over a career that spanned nearly six decades, DeCarava came to be known as a founder in the field of black and white fine art photography, advocating for an approach to the medium based on the core value of an individual,
subjective creative sensibility, which was separate and distinct from the "
social documentary" style of many predecessors.
Early life and education
Roy DeCarava was born in Harlem, New York on December 9, 1919. DeCarava came of age during the
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the t ...
, when artistic activity and achievement among African Americans flourished across the literary, musical, dramatic, and visual arts. After graduating from
Textile High School in New York City in 1938, DeCarava independently began working as a visual artist. He continued his formal education at
Cooper Union
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...
(1938–1940), where he studied painting, architecture, and sculpture. DeCarava expanded upon this early training at the
Harlem Art Center (1940–1942) as well as the
George Washington Carver Art School, where in addition to painting he began to experiment with printmaking. DeCarava first began to use photography as a means to record and as reference for his paintings, but was so enthralled by the medium that he began devoting all of his time to it and championed black and white silver gelatin photography as an art form of its own. He used his camera to produce striking studies of everyday black life in Harlem, capturing the varied textures of the neighborhood and the creative efflorescence of the Harlem Renaissance. Resisting explicit politicization, DeCarava used photography to counter what he described as “black people...not being portrayed in a serious and artistic way.”
DeCavara was drafted in the Army in 1942, where he would first be sent to Virginia, and then stationed in Fort Claiborne, Louisiana, in the Jim Crow South. There, DeCarava experienced racism so intense that he broke down. In
Peter Galassi
Peter Johnston Galassi (born April 18, 1951) is an American writer, curator, and art historian working in the field of photography. His principal fields are photography and nineteenth-century French art.
Education
Galassi graduated from Phillip ...
's biographical essay for the
MoMA
Moma may refer to:
People
* Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist
* Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician
* Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher
Places
; Ang ...
show, the artist recalled: "The only place that wasn’t segregated in the army was the psychiatric ward of the hospital. I was there for about a month. I was in the army for about six or seven months altogether, but I had nightmares about it for twenty years." DeCarava was married for forty years to art historian Sherry Turner DeCarava. The two collaborated on exhibitions and publications while DeCarava was alive and she continued to promote his work upon his death. According to his obituary, the two met when Turner DeCarava interviewed him for a public program at the
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...
.
Career in fine art photography
DeCarava produced five published art books, including ''The Sound I Saw'' and ''
The Sweet Flypaper of Life'',
as well as landmark museum catalogs and
retrospective
A retrospective (from Latin ''retrospectare'', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in medicine, software development, popu ...
surveys from the Friends of Photography and the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
in New York. The subject of at least 15 solo art exhibitions, DeCarava was the first African-American photographer to win a
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
and as a result of the fellowship, was able to photograph his community and New York City for one year; expressing early creative impressions through the black and white silver gelatin process. His first photo exhibit was in 1950, at the Forty-Fourth Street Gallery in New York City, and he soon found a mentor in
Edward Steichen
Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography.
Steichen was credited with tr ...
, director of photography at the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
. Gradually, DeCarava became known for his dedication to the field of visual art and for his own work within it, including many distinctive black and white, silver gelatin photographs of great American musicians. His work also appeared on several record album covers, such as ''Porgy and Bess,'' by
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
, ''Bless this House,'' by
Mahalia Jackson
Mahalia Jackson ( ; born Mahala Jackson; October 26, 1911 – January 27, 1972) was an American gospel singer, widely considered one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century. With a career spanning 40 years, Jackson was integral to t ...
, ''Flamenco Fire'' by
Carlos Montoya
Carlos García Montoya (13 December 19033 March 1993) in Madrid, Spain, was a prominent flamenco guitarist and a founder of the modern-day popular flamenco style of music.
Early life
He was the nephew of renowned flamenco guitarist Ramón Monto ...
, and ''Big Bill's Blues'', by
Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy (born Lee Conley Bradley; June 26, 1903 – August 14, 1958) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s, when he played country music to mostly African American audiences. In the 1930s ...
. DeCarava received honorary degrees from Rhode Island School of Design, the Maryland Institute of Art, Wesleyan University, The New School for Social Research, The Parsons School of Design and the Art Institute of Boston for contributions to American art.
In 2006, he was awarded the
National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...
from the
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
, the highest award given to artists by the
United States Government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...
.
DeCarava encouraged other fine art photographers and believed in the accessibility of the medium. From 1955 to 1957, at his own expense, he established and supported
A Photographer's Gallery
A Photographer's Gallery (March 1955 – 1957), 48 West 85th Street, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, founded and opened by Roy DeCarava, was an early effort to gain recognition for photography as an art form. It exhibited a ...
in his apartment in a
brownstone
Brownstone is a brown Triassic–Jurassic sandstone that was historically a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States and Canada to refer to a townhouse clad in this or any other aesthetically similar material.
Type ...
block at 48 West 85th Street,
New York, in which was shown artwork by the great names of American photography of the period. In 1963, he co-founded and became the first director of the
Kamoinge Workshop
The Kamoinge Workshop is a photography collective that was founded in 1963. In 2013, the group stood as “the longest continuously running non-profit group in the history of photography.” The collective was born when two groups of African-Ameri ...
, a Harlem-Based collective that supported the work of black photographers through exhibitions, public programs, group critiques, and published portfolios. He taught for many years at
Hunter College
Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...
, in both its undergraduate and MFA programs.
In 1972 DeCarava received the Benin Creative Photography Award for his contributions to the black community as a creative photographer.
Roy DeCarava received the 1996 Cooper Union President's Citation Award and the 2007 and the Cooper Union Alumni Association(CUAA) Augustus Saint Gaudens Award. He was inducted into the Cooper Union Hall of Fame in 2009.
DeCarava died in New York City, on October 27, 2009.
Art historical context and commentary
Coming of age in the 1940s, DeCarava appears nothing short of
iconoclastic
Iconoclasm (from Greek: grc, εἰκών, lit=figure, icon, translit=eikṓn, label=none + grc, κλάω, lit=to break, translit=kláō, label=none)From grc, εἰκών + κλάω, lit=image-breaking. ''Iconoclasm'' may also be conside ...
in both his approach to photography, a medium strenuously identified with
evidentiary
Evidence for a proposition is what supports this proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the supported proposition is true. What role evidence plays and how it is conceived varies from field to field.
In epistemology, evidenc ...
truth, and in his
aesthetic
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed th ...
ambitions to, as he said, “break through a kind of literalness,” and “express some things I felt.” Maintaining his quest to create a visually autonomous photographic subject of color, DeCarava endured decades of embittering misunderstanding. He has pointed out over and over that despite his “reputation as a documentar
photographer, … I really never was,” and reiterated his steadfastly modernist concern to achieve “a creative expression,” rather than a “documentary or sociological statement.” While DeCarava never worked in the field of cinema himself, he grew up in the era of black-and-white
filmmaking
Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, casti ...
and, in an interview much later in his career, noted, “I think I absorbed the visual aesthetic of black-and-white films, so that when I started taking pictures, it was natural.”
His largest work is ''Roy DeCarava: A Retrospective'', over 200 black and white photos spanning the late 1940s to the 1990s. Another work is ''The Sweet Flypaper of Life''.
Published in 1955, it is a pictorial narrative of family life in Harlem with photographs by DeCarava and text by
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hug ...
. DeCarava wrote ”in spite of poverty, you see people with dignity and a certain quality that contrasts with where they live and what they’re doing.” His Guggenheim fellowship helped fund the project while he spent a full year shooting the photographs for the book.
Exhibitions
* 1950-One man photography show at
Forty-Fourth Street Gallery, New York City
* 1951-One man photography show at
Countee Cullen Branch Library, New York City
* 1953-"Always the Young Stranger"-
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, New York City
* 1955-"Family of Man"-
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, New York City
* 1957-"70 Photographers Look at New York"-
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, New York City
* 1960-"New Acquisitions"-
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, New York City
* 1964-"The Photographer's Eye"-
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, New York City
* 1965-"
Edward Steichen
Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography.
Steichen was credited with tr ...
Center/Fine Art Photographs"-
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, New York City
* 1965-"Photography in the Fine Arts #1"-
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, New York City
* 1969-"Thru Black Eyes"-
Studio Museum, Harlem
* 1970-"Roy DeCarava/Photographs"-
Sheldon Memorial Art Center,
University of Nebraska
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...
* 1974-"Photography in America"-
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...
, New York City
* 1976-"The Nation's Capital in Photographs"-
The Corcoran Gallery of Art
The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University.
Overview
The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...
, Washington D.C.
Collections
DeCarava's work is held in the following permanent public collections:
*
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 F ...
, New York
*
The Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of the ...
, New York
*
Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
*Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
*Andover Art Gallery, Andover-Phillips Academy, Massachusetts
*Atlanta University, Georgia
*
Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc., New York
*Belafonte Enterprises, Inc., New York
*Detroit Institute of Arts
*Portland Art Museum
*San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
*The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
*Philadelphia Museum of Art
*Museum of Fine Arts Boston
*Harvard Art Museums
*Stanford University Cantor Arts Center
*National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Works consulted
*''The Nation's Capital in Photographs'',
Corcoran Gallery of Art
The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University.
Overview
The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...
, 1976. By
John Gossage
John Gossage (born 1946) is an American photographer, noted for his artist's books and other publications using his photographs to explore under-recognised elements of the urban environment such as abandoned tracts of land, debris and garbage, and ...
. Edition of 3000 copies.
* ''Roy DeCarava, Photographs.'' Edited by James Alinder,
Friends of Photography Friends of Photography was a nonprofit organization started by Ansel Adams and others in 1967 to promote photography as a fine art. During its existence the organization held at least 330 photography exhibitions at its galleries in Carmel and San F ...
, 1981. .
* ''Roy DeCarava, A Retrospective.''
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, New York, NY 1996. .
* ''The Sound I Saw: Improvisation on a Jazz Theme.''
Phaidon, 2000. .
* ''
Ralph Eugene Meatyard.'' New York:
International Center of Photography
The International Center of Photography (ICP), at 79 Essex Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, consists of a museum for photography and visual culture and a school offering an array of educational courses and programming. ...
, 2004. . Introduction by
Cynthia Young.
References
External links
The Sherry and Roy DeCarava Archives ''New York Times'', October 28, 2009
*
ttp://vimeo.com/26581250 Roy DeCarava TributeRoy DeCarava at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN
{{DEFAULTSORT:Decarava, Roy
1919 births
2009 deaths
African-American photographers
20th-century American photographers
Cooper Union alumni
Hunter College faculty
Jazz photographers
American portrait photographers
United States National Medal of Arts recipients
Artists from New York City
Photographers from New York City
Military personnel from New York City
American people of Jamaican descent