Photo: Style and Finesse, 2010. Digital chromogenic print, 16 × 20 in. Courtesy the artist. © Jamel Shabazz
Harlem is the heart and soul of New York, the epicenter of African-American life, culture, history, and hustle. At the turn of the twentieth-century, this vast tract of land in upper Manhattan quickly became the destination for black folks leaving the South en masse during the Great Migration. Here, folks created a town within a city entirely its own, dominating the wide boulevards and stately homes with a style and approach to life that combined the very best of the North and the South.
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It was during this first wave that the Harlem Renaissance was born, giving rise to a flourishing movement of a wide array of arts from literature, poetry, and drama to music, dance, and theater. Visual artists also took root, creating images that bespoke not just the times but also the rich and textured history of African-American life as seen through the eyes of the people.
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Among the great artists of the era was James Van DerZee, one of the premier photographers of the twentieth century. During the 1920 and ‘30s, he crafted a compelling pictures of Harlem’s emerging middle class that employed the elements of traditional Victorian portraiture—but took them to new heights but connecting with the spirit of his subjects and bringing out their glamorous inner light. Van DerZee’s photographs came to define Harlem in a way that few other photographers ever could, and in doing so, he influenced generations to come—including the great Jamel Shabazz.
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Photo: Double Exposure, 1990. Digital chromogenic print, 16 × 20 in. Courtesy the artist. © Jamel Shabazz.