[Chicago Defender News Truck with Three Men Holding Papers]

James Van Der Zee

1928 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

Van Der Zee enjoyed a reputation as Harlem’s preeminent photographer in the 1920s and 1930s. Here, he staged a portrait of the New York distributors of the Chicago Defender, a pioneering news daily that played a central role in the Great Migration of African Americans out of the rural South. The men hold a newspaper with the headline “De Priest Nominated,” a reference to the first African American from a northern city to be elected to Congress. Van Der Zee’s subtle representation of journalistic activity centered on a milestone in voting rights presages the later importance of reportage within the civil rights movement and Conceptual Art of the 1960s. Enlargements of Van Der Zee’s work were influential in The Met’s controversial multimedia exhibition of 1969, “Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America, 1900–1968.”

Artist

James Van Der Zee

Date

1928

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gift of James Van Der Zee Institute, 1970