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Roy DeCarava

Untitled

Maker

Roy DeCarava (American, 1919-2009)

Title

Untitled

Year

1956

Medium

  • gelatin silver print

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

  • gelatin silver print

Materials

silver print

Dimensions

Image: 33 x 22.5 cm (13 x 8 7/8 inches)

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Walter H. Kimball Fund

Object Number

1990.020

Type

  • Photographs

Exhibition History

Roy DeCarava
Photographs from the Collection
Jan 11, 2002 – Mar 31, 2002

Label copy

"The photograph was taken at a dance of a social club at the 11th St. Manor at Fifth Avenue... It's about these two dancers who represent a terrible torment for me in that I feel a great ambiguity about the image because of them. It's because they are in some ways distorted characters. What they actually are is two black male dancers who dance in the manner of an older generation of black vaudeville performers. The problem comes because their figures remind me so much of the real life experience of blacks in their need to put themselves in an awkward position before the man, for the man; to demean themselves in order to survive, to get along. In a way, these figures seem to epitomize that reality. And yet there is something in the figures not about that; something in the figures that is very creative, that is very real and very black in the finest sense of the word. So there is this duality, this ambiguity in the photograph that I find very hard to live with.... I have to say that even though it jars some of my sensibilities and it reminds me of things I would rather not be reminded of, it is still a good picture. In fact, it is good just because of those things and in spite of those things. The picture works." (Roy DeCarava, 1981)

One Voice, Many Visions
Work By African American Artists
Feb 20, 1998 – Jun 14, 1998
African-American Art from the Permanent Collection
Nov 18, 1994 – Feb 19, 1995
Recent Acquisitions in the Siskind Center
Sep 10, 1993 – Jan 09, 1994

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

Roy DeCarava (American, 1919-2009)
Untitled, 1956
Gelatin silver print
Image: 33 x 22.5 cm (13 x 8 7/8 inches)
Walter H. Kimball Fund 1990.020

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

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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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