Harlem of the 1920s portrayed by James Van Der Zee

James Van Der Zee (1886-1983) opened his own photography studio during World War I and struck a chord: his studio portraits, some hand-painted, with elaborate, detailed backgrounds, quickly became popular in New York's Harlem neighborhood. In the decades that followed, Van Der Zee photographed not only in his studio but also on the street: group portraits of various political or religious groups, sports teams, nightclubs and shop windows.

As an artist himself, Van Der Zee was part of the Harlem Renaissance, which he also documented: an artistic and cultural movement of African-American intellectuals that began in Harlem and soon found followers worldwide. The economic crisis and the development of 35mm cameras deprived Van Der Zee of his creative basis and forced him to make a living from passport photos from then on. It was not until the late 1960s that his photographs were exhibited by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and once again became known to a wider public.

The National Gallery of Art − located near the White House and the Capitol − is now bringing Van Der Zee back into the conversation in a divided America of the post-Trump era, thereby also making a political statement. The show is on view through May 30, 2022.