chen, head of MoMA’s Department of Photogra-
phy, who purchased three of DeCarava’s prints
for the collection. In 1952, Steichen sponsored
DeCarava’s receipt of the John Simon Guggenheim
Memorial Fellowship, the first received by an Afri-
can-American. The fellowship allowed him to work
full-time as a photographer, resulting in the com-
pletion of some of his most renowned images.
The documentary aesthetic is often used to
describe DeCarava’s style, but his publications of
photographic stories about the independent rhythms
of cultural communities reveal his poetic interests.
The Sweet Flypaper of Life(1955) is an international
phenomenon in this regard. Published in English,
German, and Czech languages, the book merged
DeCarava’s photographs and their characteristic
straightforward, descriptive titles with Langston
Hughes’ fictional narrative that related issues of fami-
ly, marriage, and individual experience in 1950s’ Har-
lem. During a time when integration occupied the
Supreme Court, DeCarava’s images embodied a
revolutionary spirit. During the 1950s, DeCarava
also began the project of photographing the legend-
ary figures of jazz and bebop, including Count Basie,
Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Thelonius Monk,
Elvin Jones, and Ornette Coleman. As an active par-
ticipant, he saw jazz and his photography as impro-
visation—something you do all at once and that
melds looking with listening. DeCarava envisioned
this series as an intermeshing of prose and image
bearing the titleThe Sound I Saw: Improvisations on
aJazzTheme(1962, 2001). The project first materi-
alized in 1983 as an exhibition organized by the Stu-
dio Museum in Harlem and was later completed as a
publication in 2001 through Phaidon Press.
During the Civil Rights Movement, DeCarava
traveled to the March on Washington. Photo-
graphs such as Mississippi Freedom Marcher,
Washington, D.C.(1963) demonstrate that despite
the momentous event, capturing human promise
rather than documentation was the main subject.
As an activist, DeCarava was most vocal during
the controversy of the New York Metropolitan
Museum of Art’s 1969 exhibitionHarlem on My
Mind(1969). The exhibition aimed to represent
Harlem through documents and photographic
enlargements yet included few African-American
artists. Although he was asked to participate,
DeCarava declined and wrote a statement inPop-
ular Photography, voicing his concerns over mis-
representation and the lack of foresight in
presenting photography.
Regardless of racial opposition, DeCarava pio-
neered organizations throughout his career. From
1955 to 1957, he opened A Photographer’s Gallery,
one of the first photography galleries in New York
City. Exhibited artists included Ralph Eugene
Meatyard, Minor White, Van Deren Coke, Harry
Callahan, and Berenice Abbott. In 1958, he began
work as a freelance photographer for magazines
such asSports Illustrated,Good Housekeeping, and
Scientific Americanand on film and television sets
as a still photographer. In 1960, the actor Harry
Belafonte produced a CBS television series ‘‘New
York 19,’’ which used DeCarava’s expressionistic
images to connect segments of the hour-long pro-
gram. By the 1970s DeCarava’s public presence
influenced many younger black artists. He served
on the board of American Society of Magazine
Photographers, which fostered the Committee to
End Discrimination Against Black Photographers.
Frustrations with the committee led to the spear-
heading of the Kamoinge Workshop. The group
effort opened a gallery on 125th Street in Harlem.
This photography consortium provided an atmo-
sphere of discussion and opportunity by producing
group seminars and portfolios. Photography critic
A. D. Coleman supported DeCarava for his men-
toring and ability to surpass the exclusion that
many non-White photographers received during
the 1970s.
After his marriage to art historian Sherry Turner
in 1971 DeCarava’s work included domestic themes
and botanicals. In 1975, DeCarava created his first
major body of work taken outside of New York City
when the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington,
D.C. sponsored The Nation’s Capital in Photo-
graphs, a series of solo exhibitions based on commis-
sions. In 1981, the Friends of Photography in
Carmel, California, mountedRoy DeCarava,Photo-
graphs, an important exhibition that highlighted
Turner’s archival research of her husband’s work.
The exhibition catalogue serves as a monograph and
includes her authoritative essay, ‘‘Celebrations.’’
The Museum of Modern Art organized, to interna-
tional acclaim, the photographer’s next major exhi-
bition, Roy DeCarava: A Retrospective in 1996.
DeCarava’s editorial photographs, however, were
excluded from this survey, which had the result
that even greater interest focused on his contribu-
tions to and influence on commercial photography.
Today, DeCarava’s visions of urban communities
are seen as foundational to the work of contempor-
ary photographers such as Carrie Mae Weems and
Nikki S. Lee. Production of his photographs are
managed by Sherri Turner DeCarava, who presides
as Executive Director of The DeCarava Foundation
and The DeCarava Archive, which holds reproduc-
tion rights to his work. Since 1975, DeCarava has
taught full-time at Hunter College of the City Uni-DECARAVA, ROY