the Paul R Jones collection of African American art

Roy DeCarava (b.1919) trained as a painter and printmaker at the Cooper Union School of Art and Harlem Community Art Center, but made his mark as one of the central figures of modern American photography. Edward Steichen was an early supporter, giving DeCarava's work a prominent place in his ground-breaking The Family of Man exhibition and book. DeCarava is the first African American to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship, and reached wide acclaim with the publication of The Sweet Flypaper of Life, photographs of daily life in Harlem juxtaposed with a lyrical short story by Langston Hughes. He opened A Photographer's Gallery in New York in 1954, and later co-founded the Kamoinge Workshop, a coalition of African American photographers. He has taught at Hunter College since 1975, where he is a Distinguished Professor of the City University of New York.

GRADUATION DAY
1949
silver gelatin print

HALLWAY
silver gelatin print

LINKS

Roy DeCarava
A biography with images & timeline
www.temple.edu
A retrospective and biographical notes
www.tfaoi.com
As seen from the photojournalists' perspective
www.nieman.harvard.edu
An overview of a 1998 retrospective at SFMOMA
www.sfmoma.org
The DeCarava Archives
www.decarava.com

Tribes
An Interview with Roy DeCarava
www.tribes.org

The Sound I Saw
A synopsis of the book, "the printed equivalent of jazz"
www.jazzscript.co.uk