PHOTOGRAPHS
Van Der Zee, James
U.S. (1886 - 1983)
Untitled [studio portrait]
1927
Gelatin silver print on printing-out paper
7 13/16 x 9 7/8 in. (19.8 x 25.1 cm) image size; 8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4 cm) sheet size
Joseph and Elaine Monsen Photography Collection, gift of Joseph and Elaine Monsen and The Boeing Company
FA 97.177

Attracted by the growing reputation of Harlem, New York, as a hot center of music, theater, literature, and the visual arts, James Van Der Zee moved there in the early 1920s. He supported himself by turning photography, a childhood hobby, into a profession. Soon, his portrait studio was the most popular in Harlem, and his clients included not only middle-class blacks but also the cultural heroes of what came to be called the "Harlem Renaissance." He was famously quick to costume his portrait sitters and to retouch his pictures--straightening teeth and fixing flyaway hair with his paintbrush. Perhaps it was this reputation that made him a fine choice for the group of cross-dressing men and women posed here, probably on their way to one of Harlem's notorious drag balls. -- Label copy for The Photographic Impulse: A Critical History of Photography, The Joseph and Elaine Monsen Collection, Cincinnati Art Museum, October 12, 2001 to January 6, 2002.