Roy DeCarava
(American, 1919–2009)
Biography
Roy DeCarava was a photographer best known for chronicling the daily life of the Black community and famous Jazz musicians in his hometown of Harlem, New York during the Harlem Renaissance. His most famous works include Graduation and John Coltrane, which were both featured in his book “The Sweet Flypaper of Life,” a collaboration with Langston Hughes. DeCarava began his career as a painter, using a camera only to record images to paint later. Becoming aware of the limitations faced by Black painters, he was eventually drawn to the immediacy of photography and shifted gears. DeCarava’s shift to photography was also a response to the Civil Rights Movement, and came from a desire to represent the Black community in an artistic light. “One of the things that got to me was that I felt that Black people were not being portrayed in a serious and in an artistic way,” he told the New York Times in 1982. In 1938, DeCarava was awarded a scholarship to the Cooper Union School of Art. He studied there for two years, before attending the Harlem Community Art Center, where his peers included Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, and Langston Hughes. For his final year, DeCarava attended the George Washington Carver Art School, where he learned alongside the social realist Charles White. Throughout his career, DeCarava combined political commentary with aesthetic beauty. He passed away in Harlem in 2009. In 2019, David Zwirner Books published Light Break, a survey of DeCarava’s work. His photographs can also be seen in the MoMA, the Whitney, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Roy DeCarava Artworks
Roy DeCarava
(188 results)
.jpg "Pickets (Strikers), 1946–1951")
.jpg "Adolescent (Close up), 1949")
.jpg "Metropole cafe (from New York 19), 1960")
.jpg "Dancers' legs (from New York 19), 1956")
.jpg "Lonely women (from New York 19), 1960")
.jpg "Kids god bless (from New York 19), 1952")
English (US)
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