The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of March 19, 2025
Portrait of a Young Man
c. 1931–37
(American, 1886–1983)
Image: 14.1 x 11.3 cm (5 9/16 x 4 7/16 in.); Matted: 45.7 x 35.6 cm (18 x 14 in.)
© Donna Mussenden VanDerZee
Location: not on view
Description
Commercial portrait photographers create images of people as they wish to be remembered. Most of the clients visiting Van Der Zee’s Harlem studio were upper- and middle-class African Americans who arrived in their most elegant clothing. The identities of the sitters in his two portraits on view here are unknown, but we can be confident that he made the movie-star-handsome young man and the sweetly smiling young lady look their best. Van Der Zee did not gain recognition from the art world until age 82 when his photographs were included in a 1969 exhibition about Harlem at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.- Lee, Key Jo. "A New Look at the Great Harlem Renaissance Photographer James Van Der Zee.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine vol. 57, no. 6 (November/December 2017): 38. Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 38.
- From Riches to Rags: American Photography in the Depression. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 13-December 31, 2017).
- {{cite web|title=Portrait of a Young Man|url=false|author=James Van Der Zee|year=c. 1931–37|access-date=19 March 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1999.57