Skip to Main Content

Portrait of a Young Woman

1936
(American, 1886–1983)
America
gelatin silver print
Image: 24.2 x 19.4 cm (9 1/2 x 7 5/8 in.); Paper: 25.3 x 20.3 cm (9 15/16 x 8 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20 x 16 in.)
The Jane B. Tripp Charitable Lead Annuity Trust 1999.58
Location: not on view
This artwork is known to be under copyright.

Download, Print and Share

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.
Portrait of a Young Woman

Portrait of a Young Woman

1936

James Van Der Zee

(American, 1886–1983)
America

See Also

Visually Similar by AI

Contact us

The information about this object, including provenance, may not be currently accurate. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about this object, please email collectionsdata@clevelandart.org.

To request more information about this object, study images, or bibliography, contact the Ingalls Library Reference Desk.

All images and data available through Open Access can be downloaded for free. For images not available through Open Access, a detail image, or any image with a color bar, request a digital file from Image Services.