Roy DeCarava, whose photographs captured the essence of life in Harlem
Dec. 9, 1919—Oct. 27, 2009
NEW YORK (AP)—Roy De- Carava, a photographer whose black-and-white images captured Harlem’s everyday life and the jazz greats who performed there, has died. He was 89.
Mr. DeCarava died in Manhattan of natural causes Tuesday, said his daughter, Susan DeCarava. He had been teaching an advance photography course at Hunter College, where he joined the faculty in 1975.
Born in Harlem, Mr. DeCarava was considered to be among the first to give serious photographic attention to the black experience in America.
Trained as a painter, Mr. De- Carava relied on ambient light, infusing his images with shadows and shades of gray and black—a style that invited the viewer to look closer.
“He photographed for himself, and ultimately produced a body of work that enshrined the social contradictions of the ’50s, the explosion of improvisational jazz music in the ’60s, the struggle for social equity, the boldfaced stridency of the ’70s and ’80s, only to turn to even more contemplative realities during the later years of his life,” his wife, art historian Sherry Turner DeCarava, said in a statement.
“His contribution to American photography and culture is manifold.”
Using a 35mmcamera, Mr. DeCarava chronicled black Americans doing ordinary things: a family watching the Harlem River; a couple dancing in their kitchen; a girl standing on a desolate street in a white graduation dress.
Mr. DeCarava worked at a time of enormous creative energy in Harlem, whose many residents included prominent writers, artists and musicians. He spent years capturing candid shots of Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane and other jazz musicians— many taken in smoke-filled nightclubs.
“The Sound I Saw,” published in 2001 and reprinted in 2003, is a collection of his jazz photography.
In 1951, he became the first black photographer to win the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in the arts.
In 1955, he collaborated with poet Langston Hughes on the best-selling pictorial narrative on 20th century African-American life titled “The Sweet Flypaper of Life.”
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