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Man with Portfolio

Roy DeCarava American
1959
Not on view
DeCarava, who was trained as a painter, took up photography in the late 1940s. He is perhaps best known for his street photographs of Harlem and his portraits of jazz musicians, which have been justly celebrated as intimate, lyrical, unsentimental expressions of the black American experience. This tightly cropped shot of a man clutching a portfolio behind his back conveys with poetic concision the combined hope and trepidation of aspiring artists looking for a way in.

[label for Johnson XXVIII]

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Man with Portfolio
  • Artist: Roy DeCarava (American, 1919–2009)
  • Date: 1959
  • Medium: Gelatin silver print
  • Dimensions: Image: 22.8 x 34.1 cm (9 x 13 7/16 in.)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Funds from various donors and matching funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, 1981
  • Object Number: 1981.1078
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

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