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James Van Der Zee

The Heiress, Harlem

Maker

James Van Der Zee (American, 1886-1983)

Title

The Heiress, Harlem
Eighteen Photographs

Year

1938, printed ca. 1973

Medium

  • gelatin silver print

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

  • gelatin silver print

Materials

silver print

Dimensions

18.4 x 23.6 cm (7 1/4 x 9 5/16 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

Signed in pencil below the image on the mat below the image:XVII 23 / 75; at right:J. Van Der Zee; signed on negative, LL:Van Der Zee / NYC / ?

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Museum purchase with the aid of funds from the National Endowment for the Arts

Object Number

80.232.17

Type

  • Photographs

Exhibition History

Past Made Present
Dutch Shadows in the Black Atlantic
Sep 03, 2022 – Aug 06, 2023

Label copy

For four decades of the 20th century, James Van Der Zee documented Harlem, a vibrant center of African American culture that was once the Dutch settlement Haarlem. While Miss Suzie Porter and Garveyite Family depict Black middle-class subjects in Harlem, The Heiress portrays a domestic worker who recently inherited the home, furnishings, and art collection of her wealthy white employer.

Van Der Zee photographed important figures from Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) to artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988), but his main subjects were ordinary people, many of whom had come to Harlem from across the US, the Caribbean, and Africa in search of opportunity.

Keeping Warm
Dec 05, 1980 – Jan 25, 1981

Image use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use.

In copyright This object is in copyright

Tombstone

James Van Der Zee (American, 1886-1983)
The Heiress, Harlem; Eighteen Photographs, 1938, printed ca. 1973
Gelatin silver print
18.4 x 23.6 cm (7 1/4 x 9 5/16 inches)
Museum purchase with the aid of funds from the National Endowment for the Arts 80.232.17

To request new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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