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Roy DeCarava

author · photographer

American[1] b. 9 December 1919, New York City, New York, U.S.[1] d. 27 October 2009, New York City, New York, U.S.[1] active 1940–2009

Roy Rudolph DeCarava (1919–2009) was a pioneering American photographer known for his groundbreaking black-and-white fine art photography, particularly his documentation of African American life and jazz musicians in New York City. Born in Harlem, DeCarava emerged from the Harlem Renaissance era and studied painting, architecture, and sculpture at Cooper Union. He championed an artistic approach to photography that emphasized subjective creative sensibility over social documentary. DeCarava was the first African American to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship and was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2006. His work, which often captured the nuances of everyday life and the iconic figures of the jazz scene, is held in numerous permanent collections, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was a founder and director of the Kamoinge Workshop and taught at Hunter College for many years.[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22]

  • Jazz music
  • African American life
  • Harlem Renaissance
  • Black and white photography
  • Urban life

Works by Roy DeCarava

  • 2001 The Sound I Saw: Improvisation on a Jazz Theme Phaidon Press · book · English · ISBN 9780714841236 Primary monograph featuring a collection of jazz photographs.
  • 1955 The Sweet Flypaper of Life Howard University Press · book · English · ISBN 9780999843826 Photographic narrative of family life in Harlem with text by Langston Hughes.

Works about Roy DeCarava

  • 1996 Roy DeCarava: A Retrospective Museum of Modern Art · book · English · ISBN 9780870701269 Retrospective survey of his work.

Exhibitions

  • 1953 Always the Young Stranger Museum of Modern Art, New York City · solo
  • 2019 Roy DeCarava: Selected Works David Zwirner Gallery, London · solo

Awards

  • 1952 Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Foundation
  • 2006 National Medal of Arts National Endowment for the Arts
  • 1996 Cooper Union President's Citation Award Cooper Union

References

  1. Randy Kennedy. Roy DeCarava, Harlem Insider Who Photographed Ordinary Life, Dies at 89. The New York Times. The New York Times. 2009 link
  2. Roy DeCarava | MoMA. The Museum of Modern Art link
  3. Hilton Als. Roy DeCarava's Poetics of Blackness. The New Yorker. The New Yorker. 2019 link
  4. The Sherry and Roy DeCarava Archives link
  5. Roy DeCarava; Langston Hughes. The sweet flypaper of life. Howard University Press. 2018
  6. Roy DeCarava, A Retrospective. Museum of Modern Art. 1996
  7. Roy DeCarava; Langston Hughes. The sweet flypaper of life. Howard University Press. 1984
  8. James Smalls. DeCarava, Roy. Oxfordartonline.com. Oxford University Press. 2017 link
  9. Karanjot Gill. Roy DeCarava (1919-2009). BlackPast. BlackPast. 2018 link
  10. Jacques Denis. Total records : photography and the art of the album cover. Aperture. 2016
  11. Janet Borgerson; Jonathan Schroeder. Recovering and Discovering Album Cover Artists and Photographers. MIT Press blog. MIT Press. 2017 link
  12. Roy DeCarava - Artists - Howard Greenberg Gallery. Howard Greenberg Gallery link
  13. 2006 National Medal of Arts. Roy DeCarava. Photographer, New York. National Endowment for the Arts. 2006 link
  14. Dread Scott. An Interview with Roy DeCarava. A Gathering of the Tribes. A.G.O.T.T. link
  15. Kamoinge's Half Century of African American Photography. The New York Times. The New York Times. 2016 link
  16. Roy DeCarava. Roy DeCarava : February 14-May 9, 1976, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C_. The Gallery. 1976
  17. Alumni Profile: Roy DeCarava A' 40. Cooper Alumni. Cooper Union. 2015 link
  18. Abbie Fentress Swanson. Photographer Roy DeCarava Dies at 89. WQXR News. WQXR News. 2009 link
  19. Maren Stange. Essay Post 5: Roy DeCarava. marenstange.com. 2017 link
  20. Roy DeCarava. David Zwirner link
  21. Fern Robinson. MASTERFUL AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER ROY DECARAVA. American Visions. 1999
  22. Philip Brookman; Deborah Willis. Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955-1985. Yale University Press. 2025