Roy de carava biography
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Roy DeCarava
American photographer (1919–2009)
Roy DeCarava | |
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| Born | Roy Rudolph DeCarava (1919-12-09)December 9, 1919 Harlem Hospital |
| Died | October 27, 2009(2009-10-27) (aged 89) |
| Known for | fine-art photography |
| Notable work | The Sound I Saw, The Sweet Flypaper of Life |
| Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship, National Medal of Arts |
Roy Rudolph DeCarava (December 9, 1919 – October 27, 2009) was an American artist. DeCarava received early critical acclaim for his photography, initially engaging and imaging the lives of African Americans and jazz musicians in the communities where he lived and worked. Over a career that spanned nearly six decades, DeCarava came to be known as a founder in the field of black and white fine art photography, advocating for an approach to the medium based on the core value of an individual, subjective creative sensibility, which was separate and distinct from the "social documentary" style of many predecessors.[1]
Early life and education
[edit]Roy DeCarava was born in Harlem, New York on December 9, 1919. DeCarava came of age during the Harlem Renaissance, when artistic activity and achievement among African Americans flourished across the literary, musical, dramatic, and visual arts. After
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Biography
Roy DeCarava was born in New York City in 1919, he attended Cooper Union from 1938 to 1940, then because of his growing frustration with racial prejudice transferred to the Harlem Community Art Center. He began taking photographs in the late 1940s, and Harlem--its sense of community, its rich and varied cultural traditions and talents--was at the heart of his work. In 1952, DeCarava became the first African-American photographer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship, on the basis of on his proposal to create a photographic portrait of Harlem paired with poetry by Langston Hughes. Their 1955 collaboration, The Sweet Flypaper of Life, was a critical and popular success. That same year, DeCarava's work was included in The Family of Man exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. He also founded A Photographer's Gallery in New York (1955-57) to present his own work as well as that of Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Harry Callahan, and others. He is perhaps best known for the photographs he took of jazz performers in the mid-1950s. Since 1975, DeCarava has taught photography at Hunter College in New York. Monographs on him and his work include Roy DeCarava: Photographs, and Roy DeCarava: A Retrospective, released in 1996 to coincide with his major exhibition at the Museum of Modern
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