Friday, December 9, 2022

Achievement Stories: Roy deCarava First African American to Win a Guggenheim Fellowship


December 9, 1919, Roy deCarava was born in Harlem, New York. DeCarava became a critically acclaimed photographer, primarily for his black & white imaging of the lives of African Americans and jazz musicians in the communities where he lived and worked. In 1952 he became 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. He went on to have 15 solo shows at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. He published five art books, including “The Sound I Saw” about the Bebop Era jazz musicians of New York and “The Sweet Flypaper of Life” with Langston Hughes. deCarava's photos and Hughes's story, told through the character Sister Mary Bradley, depict, and describe Black family life in Harlem, in the 1950s.

I'm not a documentarian, I
never have been. I think of myself
as poetic, a maker of visions,
dreams, and a few nightmares.” ~ 
Roy deCarava

Miles Davis From The Sound I Saw by deCarava

“Joe and Julia singing,”  from "The Sweet Flypaper of Life" 1953. 

Credit...The Estate of Roy deCarava/Courtesy of David Zwirner




 

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