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Roy DeCarava

January 01, 1970

Roy Rudolph DeCarava (December 9, 1919 – October 27, 2009) was an American artist. DeCarava received early critical acclaim for his photography, initially engaging and imaging the lives of African Americans and jazz 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.[1]

Roy DeCarava
Born
Roy Rudolph DeCarava

(1919-12-09)December 9, 1919
Harlem Hospital
DiedOctober 27, 2009(2009-10-27) (aged 89)
Known forfine-art photography
Notable workThe Sound I Saw,
The Sweet Flypaper of Life
AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship,
National Medal of Arts

Early life and education edit

Roy DeCarava was born in Harlem, New York on December 9, 1919. DeCarava came of age during the Harlem Renaissance, 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 (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.”[2]

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's biographical essay for the MoMA 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."[3] 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.[4]

Career in fine art photography edit

DeCarava produced five published art books, including The Sound I Saw and The Sweet Flypaper of Life,[5] as well as landmark museum catalogs and retrospective surveys from the Friends of Photography and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.[6][7] The subject of at least 15 solo art exhibitions, DeCarava was the first African-American photographer to win a Guggenheim Fellowship 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.[8] 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, director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art.[9] 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, Bless this House, by Mahalia Jackson, Flamenco Fire by Carlos Montoya, and Big Bill's Blues, by Big Bill Broonzy.[10][11] 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.[12]

In 2006, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts from the National Endowment for the Arts, the highest award given to artists by the United States Government.[13]

DeCarava encouraged other fine art photographers and believed in the accessibility of the medium.[14] From 1955 to 1957, at his own expense, he established and supported A Photographer's Gallery in his apartment in a brownstone block at 48 West 85th Street,[1] 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, a Harlem-Based collective that supported the work of black photographers through exhibitions, public programs, group critiques, and published portfolios.[15] He taught for many years at Hunter College, 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.[16] 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.[17]

DeCarava died in New York City, on October 27, 2009.[18]

Art historical context and commentary edit

Coming of age in the 1940s, DeCarava appears nothing short of iconoclastic in both his approach to photography, a medium strenuously identified with evidentiary truth, and in his aesthetic 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[y] photographer, … I really never was,” and reiterated his steadfastly modernist concern to achieve “a creative expression,” rather than a “documentary or sociological statement.”[19] While DeCarava never worked in the field of cinema himself, he grew up in the era of black-and-white filmmaking 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.” [20]

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.[5] Published in 1955, it is a pictorial narrative of family life in Harlem with photographs by DeCarava and text by Langston Hughes. 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.”[21] His Guggenheim fellowship helped fund the project while he spent a full year shooting the photographs for the book.

Exhibitions edit

[22][better source needed]

Collections edit

DeCarava's work is held in the following permanent public collections:

Works consulted edit

  • The Nation's Capital in Photographs, Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1976. By John Gossage. Edition of 3000 copies.
  • Roy DeCarava, Photographs. Edited by James Alinder, Friends of Photography, 1981. ISBN 9780933286276.
  • Roy DeCarava, A Retrospective. Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY 1996. ISBN 9780870701269.
  • The Sound I Saw: Improvisation on a Jazz Theme. Phaidon, 2000. ISBN 9780714841236.
  • Ralph Eugene Meatyard. New York: International Center of Photography, 2004. ISBN 9783865210654. Introduction by Cynthia Young.

References edit

  1. ^ a b Kennedy, Randy (October 28, 2009). "Roy DeCarava, Harlem Insider Who Photographed Ordinary Life, Dies at 89". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
  2. ^ "Roy DeCarava | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved November 18, 2019.
  3. ^ Als, Hilton (September 16, 2019). "Roy DeCarava's Poetics of Blackness". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved November 18, 2019.
  4. ^ "Tribute".
  5. ^ a b DeCarava, Roy; Hughes, Langston (September 4, 2018). The sweet flypaper of life (Fourth English language ed.). New York. ISBN 9780999843826. OCLC 1050864329.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ^ Roy DeCarava and Langston Hughes, The Sweet Flypaper of Life. Washington DC: Howard University Press, 1984 (reprint).
  7. ^ "Museum of Modern Art", American Visions, December 1999. Accessed August 23, 2009.
  8. ^ Smalls, James (January 1, 2017). "DeCarava, Roy". Oxfordartonline.com. Retrieved January 1, 2017.
  9. ^ Gill, Karanjot (October 8, 2018). "DeCarava, Roy (1919-2009) • BlackPast". BlackPast. Retrieved November 18, 2019.
  10. ^ Denis, Jacques (2016). Mondino, Jean-Baptiste (ed.). Total records : photography and the art of the album cover. New York, N.Y.: Aperture. ISBN 9781597113847. OCLC 948670847.
  11. ^ Borgerson, Janet; Schroeder, Jonathan (November 1, 2017). "Recovering and Discovering Album Cover Artists and Photographers". MIT Press blog. MIT Press. Retrieved April 22, 2018.
  12. ^ "Roy DeCarava - Artists - Howard Greenberg Gallery". Howardgreenberg.com. Retrieved November 18, 2019.
  13. ^ National Endowment for the Arts. 2006 National Medal of Arts. Roy DeCarava. Photographer, New York October 6, 2008, at the Wayback Machine. Accessed August 23, 2009.
  14. ^ Scott, Dread. . A Gathering of the Tribes. Brooklyn, New York: A.G.O.T.T. Archived from the original (Q and A with the artist, Roy DeCarava) on February 23, 2005.
  15. ^ "Kamoinge's Half Century of African American Photography". The New York Times. January 7, 2016.
  16. ^ a b DeCarava, Roy (1976). Roy DeCarava : February 14-May 9, 1976, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The Gallery. OCLC 2523133.
  17. ^ "Alumni Profile: Roy DeCarava A' 40". December 24, 2015.
  18. ^ Abbie Fentress Swanson, "Photographer Roy DeCarava Dies at 89", WQXR News, October 30, 2009.
  19. ^ Stange, Maren (May 29, 2017). "Essay Post 5: Roy DeCarava". marenstange.com. Quotes from the artist, Roy DeCarava. Retrieved June 7, 2017.
  20. ^ "Roy DeCarava". David Zwirner. Retrieved November 18, 2019.
  21. ^ Robinson, Fern. "MASTERFUL AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER ROY DECARAVA." American Visions, vol. 14, no. 6, 1999, p. 20. Academic
  22. ^ DeCarava, Roy (1975). Roy DeCarava : photographs : the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, September 12 - October 26, 1975. The Museum. OCLC 222934060.
  23. ^ "Search / All Results". Metmuseum.org. Retrieved March 21, 2019.
  24. ^ "Roy DeCarava". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved March 21, 2019.
  25. ^ "Roy DeCarava". The Art Institute of Chicago. Retrieved March 21, 2019.
  26. ^ "Art: Collection Search". Dia.org. Retrieved March 21, 2019.
  27. ^ "Roy DeCarava · SFMOMA". Sfmoma.org. Retrieved March 21, 2019.
  28. ^ "Search". Mfah.org. Retrieved March 21, 2019.
  29. ^ "Collections Search". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Retrieved March 21, 2019.

External links edit

  • The Sherry and Roy DeCarava Archives
  • Masters of Photography: Roy DeCarava
  • "Roy DeCarava, Harlem Insider Who Photographed Ordinary Life, Dies at 89", New York Times, October 28, 2009
  • Roy DeCarava Tribute
  • Roy DeCarava at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN

January 01, 1970
decarava, rudolph, decarava, december, 1919, october, 2009, american, artist, decarava, received, early, critical, acclaim, photography, initially, engaging, imaging, lives, african, americans, jazz, musicians, communities, where, lived, worked, over, career, . Roy Rudolph DeCarava December 9 1919 October 27 2009 was an American artist DeCarava received early critical acclaim for his photography initially engaging and imaging the lives of African Americans and jazz 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 1 Roy DeCaravaBornRoy Rudolph DeCarava 1919 12 09 December 9 1919Harlem HospitalDiedOctober 27 2009 2009 10 27 aged 89 Known forfine art photographyNotable workThe Sound I Saw The Sweet Flypaper of LifeAwardsGuggenheim Fellowship National Medal of Arts Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Career in fine art photography 3 Art historical context and commentary 4 Exhibitions 5 Collections 6 Works consulted 7 References 8 External linksEarly life and education editRoy DeCarava was born in Harlem New York on December 9 1919 DeCarava came of age during the Harlem Renaissance 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 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 2 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 s biographical essay for the MoMA 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 3 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 4 Career in fine art photography editDeCarava produced five published art books including The Sound I Saw and The Sweet Flypaper of Life 5 as well as landmark museum catalogs and retrospective surveys from the Friends of Photography and the Museum of Modern Art in New York 6 7 The subject of at least 15 solo art exhibitions DeCarava was the first African American photographer to win a Guggenheim Fellowship 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 8 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 director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art 9 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 Bless this House by Mahalia Jackson Flamenco Fire by Carlos Montoya and Big Bill s Blues by Big Bill Broonzy 10 11 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 12 In 2006 he was awarded the National Medal of Arts from the National Endowment for the Arts the highest award given to artists by the United States Government 13 DeCarava encouraged other fine art photographers and believed in the accessibility of the medium 14 From 1955 to 1957 at his own expense he established and supported A Photographer s Gallery in his apartment in a brownstone block at 48 West 85th Street 1 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 a Harlem Based collective that supported the work of black photographers through exhibitions public programs group critiques and published portfolios 15 He taught for many years at Hunter College 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 16 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 17 DeCarava died in New York City on October 27 2009 18 Art historical context and commentary editComing of age in the 1940s DeCarava appears nothing short of iconoclastic in both his approach to photography a medium strenuously identified with evidentiary truth and in his aesthetic 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 y photographer I really never was and reiterated his steadfastly modernist concern to achieve a creative expression rather than a documentary or sociological statement 19 While DeCarava never worked in the field of cinema himself he grew up in the era of black and white filmmaking 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 20 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 5 Published in 1955 it is a pictorial narrative of family life in Harlem with photographs by DeCarava and text by Langston Hughes 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 21 His Guggenheim fellowship helped fund the project while he spent a full year shooting the photographs for the book Exhibitions edit 22 better source needed 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 New York City 1955 Family of Man Museum of Modern Art New York City 1957 70 Photographers Look at New York Museum of Modern Art New York City 1960 New Acquisitions Museum of Modern Art New York City 1964 The Photographer s Eye Museum of Modern Art New York City 1965 Edward Steichen Center Fine Art Photographs Museum of Modern Art New York City 1965 Photography in the Fine Arts 1 Museum of Modern Art New York City 1969 Thru Black Eyes Studio Museum Harlem 1970 Roy DeCarava Photographs Sheldon Memorial Art Center University of Nebraska 1974 Photography in America Whitney Museum of American Art New York City 1976 The Nation s Capital in Photographs The Corcoran Gallery of Art Washington D C 16 Collections editThis section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section Unsourced material may be challenged and removed January 2019 Learn how and when to remove this template message DeCarava s work is held in the following permanent public collections The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York 23 The Museum of Modern Art New York 24 Art Institute of Chicago 25 Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery University of Nebraska Lincoln Andover Art Gallery Andover Phillips Academy Massachusetts Atlanta University Georgia Joseph E Seagram amp Sons Inc New York Belafonte Enterprises Inc New York Detroit Institute of Arts 26 Portland Art Museum San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 27 The Museum of Fine Arts Houston 28 Philadelphia Museum of Art Museum of Fine Arts Boston 29 Harvard Art Museums Stanford University Cantor Arts Center National Gallery of Art Washington D C Works consulted editThe Nation s Capital in Photographs Corcoran Gallery of Art 1976 By John Gossage Edition of 3000 copies Roy DeCarava Photographs Edited by James Alinder Friends of Photography 1981 ISBN 9780933286276 Roy DeCarava A Retrospective Museum of Modern Art New York NY 1996 ISBN 9780870701269 The Sound I Saw Improvisation on a Jazz Theme Phaidon 2000 ISBN 9780714841236 Ralph Eugene Meatyard New York International Center of Photography 2004 ISBN 9783865210654 Introduction by Cynthia Young References edit a b Kennedy Randy October 28 2009 Roy DeCarava Harlem Insider Who Photographed Ordinary Life Dies at 89 The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved November 11 2015 Roy DeCarava MoMA The Museum of Modern Art Retrieved November 18 2019 Als Hilton September 16 2019 Roy DeCarava s Poetics of Blackness The New Yorker ISSN 0028 792X Retrieved November 18 2019 Tribute a b DeCarava Roy Hughes Langston September 4 2018 The sweet flypaper of life Fourth English language ed New York ISBN 9780999843826 OCLC 1050864329 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link Roy DeCarava and Langston Hughes The Sweet Flypaper of Life Washington DC Howard University Press 1984 reprint Museum of Modern Art American Visions December 1999 Accessed August 23 2009 Smalls James January 1 2017 DeCarava Roy Oxfordartonline com Retrieved January 1 2017 Gill Karanjot October 8 2018 DeCarava Roy 1919 2009 BlackPast BlackPast Retrieved November 18 2019 Denis Jacques 2016 Mondino Jean Baptiste ed Total records photography and the art of the album cover New York N Y Aperture ISBN 9781597113847 OCLC 948670847 Borgerson Janet Schroeder Jonathan November 1 2017 Recovering and Discovering Album Cover Artists and Photographers MIT Press blog MIT Press Retrieved April 22 2018 Roy DeCarava Artists Howard Greenberg Gallery Howardgreenberg com Retrieved November 18 2019 National Endowment for the Arts 2006 National Medal of Arts Roy DeCarava Photographer New York Archived October 6 2008 at the Wayback Machine Accessed August 23 2009 Scott Dread An Interview with Roy DeCarava A Gathering of the Tribes Brooklyn New York A G O T T Archived from the original Q and A with the artist Roy DeCarava on February 23 2005 Kamoinge s Half Century of African American Photography The New York Times January 7 2016 a b DeCarava Roy 1976 Roy DeCarava February 14 May 9 1976 the Corcoran Gallery of Art Washington D C The Gallery OCLC 2523133 Alumni Profile Roy DeCarava A 40 December 24 2015 Abbie Fentress Swanson Photographer Roy DeCarava Dies at 89 WQXR News October 30 2009 Stange Maren May 29 2017 Essay Post 5 Roy DeCarava marenstange com Quotes from the artist Roy DeCarava Retrieved June 7 2017 Roy DeCarava David Zwirner Retrieved November 18 2019 Robinson Fern MASTERFUL AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER ROY DECARAVA American Visions vol 14 no 6 1999 p 20 Academic DeCarava Roy 1975 Roy DeCarava photographs the Museum of Fine Arts Houston September 12 October 26 1975 The Museum OCLC 222934060 Search All Results Metmuseum org Retrieved March 21 2019 Roy DeCarava The Museum of Modern Art Retrieved March 21 2019 Roy DeCarava The Art Institute of Chicago Retrieved March 21 2019 Art Collection Search Dia org Retrieved March 21 2019 Roy DeCarava SFMOMA Sfmoma org Retrieved March 21 2019 Search Mfah org Retrieved March 21 2019 Collections Search Museum of Fine Arts Boston Retrieved March 21 2019 External links editThe Sherry and Roy DeCarava Archives Masters of Photography Roy DeCarava Roy DeCarava Harlem Insider Who Photographed Ordinary Life Dies at 89 New York Times October 28 2009 Roy DeCarava Tribute Roy DeCarava at the Minneapolis Institute of Art Minneapolis MN Portals nbsp United States nbsp Biography Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Roy DeCarava amp oldid 1166817414, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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