{"data":{"id":"4984","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":4984,"topgoose_id":2352,"tms_id":4984,"display_name":"Roy DeCarava","sort_name":"DeCarava Roy","display_date":"1919–2009","begin_date":"1919","end_date":"2009","biography":"\u003cp\u003eRaised by his mother, who had emigrated from Jamaica, Roy DeCarava studied painting and lithography at New York’s Cooper Union from 1938 to 1940 before leaving for the Harlem Art Center and the George Washington Carver School, where he encountered the work of \u003ca href=\"/artists/80\"\u003eRomare Bearden,\u003c/a\u003e \u003ca href=\"/artists/759\"\u003eJacob Lawrence\u003c/a\u003e, and Langston Hughes. DeCarava began making photographs in the mid-1940s as studies for prints and paintings, and by the end of the decade he had turned his full attention to the medium. In 1952 he became the first African American photographer to receive a Guggenheim fellowship. The award allowed him to continue photographing subjects in Harlem, a project he described as “a creative expression, the kind of penetrating insight and understanding of Negroes which I believe only a Negro photographer can interpret.”\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePrevious studies of Harlem, such as the Photo League’s “Harlem Document,” undertaken in the late 1930s under the direction of Aaron Siskind, had followed the documentary mode. In marked contrast to such projects, DeCarava poetically recorded everyday life in his own neighborhood. This picture of a woman peering down her apartment building stairwell appeared in his 1955 book \u003cem\u003eThe\nSweet Flypaper of Life\u003c/em\u003e, with text by the\npoet Langston Hughes. The photographer\nproduced a number of pictures in the\nhome of Sam and Shirley Murphy and their\ntwo children. DeCarava captured not\nonly moments of intimacy within an African\nAmerican family but also the subjectivity\nand introspection of individual members of\na community.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":false,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500095793","wikidata_id":"Q2475981","created_at":"2017-08-30T17:19:41.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-03-30T07:01:50.427-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/4984/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/4984/exhibitions"}}}}