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b. 6/29/1886; d. 5/15/1983 FROM THE WEBSITE: http://search.eb.com/blackhistory/micro/727/91.html In full JAMES AUGUSTUS JOSEPH VAN DER ZEE (b. June 29, 1886, Lenox, Mass., U.S.--d. May 15, 1983, Washington, D.C.), African-American photographer whose portraits of black New Yorkers chronicled the Harlem Renaissance. The discovery of his archived prints and negatives in 1967 led to widespread interest in his work. Van Der Zee shot his first photographs as a boy in Lenox, Mass. By 1906 he had moved with his father and brother to Harlem in New York City, working as a waiter and elevator operator. In 1915 Van Der Zee moved to Newark, N.J., where he had taken a job in a portrait studio, first as a darkroom assistant and then as a portraitist. Hereturned to Harlem the following year, setting up a portrait studio at a music conservatory that his sister had founded in 1911. In 1918 Van Der Zee and his second wife, Gaynella Greenlee, launched the Guarantee Photo Studio in Harlem. The business boomed during World War I, and the photograph he shot from this period until 1945 have demanded the majority of critical attention. Among his many renowned subjects were poet Countee Cullen, dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and black-nationalist leader Marcus Garvey. Van Der Zee worked predominantly in the studio and used a variety of props, including architectural elements, backdrops, and costumes, to achieve stylized tableaux vivants in keeping with late Victorian and Edwardian visual traditions. Sitters often copied celebrities of the 1920s and '30s in their poses and expressions, however, and Van Der Zee retouched negatives and prints heavily to achieve an aura of glamour. After World War II, Van Der Zee's fortunes declined with those of Harlem. He made ends meet with occasional commissions and with a photo restoration sideline. By the time his collection of negatives and prints was discovered by a representative of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1967, the Van Der Zees were nearly destitute. In early 1969 his photos were featured as part of the museum's successful "Harlem on My Mind" exhibition, which showcased life during the Harlem Renaissance in a variety of media. Van Der Zee won increasing attention throughout the 1970s, and from late in that decade until his death in 1983, he photographed many celebrities, promoted his work in shows around the country, and was the subject of books and films. In 1993 a retrospective of his work was held at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. FROM THE ART MUSEUM (ALTGELD GALLERY) AT THE NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERISTY WEBSITE.: James VanDerZee was one of the first African-American photographers of the twentieth century. A self-taught photographer from Lenox, Massachusetts, he had considerable early training in both art and music before beginning his prolific photographic career which spanned eighty years. VanDerZee is best known for the hundreds of photographs he took in New York's Harlem district between World War I and II. Working out of a commercial studio he opened in 1916, VanDerZee specialized in portraits of celebrities and community leaders, families and children, wedding parties and social groups. During the 1920s and 30s, he was the photographer of choice for some of Harlem's most distinguished residents. Among those photographed by VanDerZee are the World War I heroes Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts; singers Mamie Smith, Hazel Scott and Florence Mills; dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson; poet Countee Cullen; heavyweight boxing champions Jack Johnson, Harry Wills and Joe Louis; and the religious and political leaders Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., George Wilson Becton, Father Divine, Daddy Grace, Rabbi Matthew and the Barefoot Prophet (Elder Clayhorn Martin.) In 1924 he became the official photographer for Marcus Garvey and the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association.) The photographs VanDerZee created between the wars -- during what later became known as the "Harlem Renaissance" -- overtly celebrated emerging black middle-class life. Using the conventions and formal qualities of studio portrait photography, this astute Harlem insider carefully composed images that reflected his clients' dignity, independence and material comfort while characterizing the time as one of achievement, idealism and success. VanDerZee provides us with the perception that his community was healthy, talented, spiritual, prosperous and productive. Deborah Willis-Braithwaite, author of Black Photographers, 1840-1988, has written of VanDerZee "(his) images define a people in the process of transformation and a culture in transition....(he) presented in visual terms the growing sense of personal and national identity in his sitters....VanDerZee's photography wrought transformation on the image of blackness in America....It is this transformative power in his work that made VanDerZee a model of the visionary and optimistic early twentieth century American photographer." VanDerZee's work was discovered by a wide audience when his photographs were included in the controversial exhibition "Harlem On My Mind" that opened in 1969 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, when the artist was eighty-two years old.