How The Met is preserving the visual history of the Harlem Renaissance
In short: The Met and the Studio Museum are collaborating to conserve the massive archive of James Van Der Zee, a legendary photographer who documented Black life in New York City for decades. This initiative ensures public access to a collection that defines a pivotal era in American art.
James Van Der Zee (1886–1983) was a master portraitist whose work serves as a primary visual record of the Harlem Renaissance and the subsequent decades of Black life in New York. The archive is vast, containing approximately 20,000 lifetime prints, 30,000 negatives, and various pieces of studio equipment and ephemera.
This project marks a significant milestone for The Met, representing its first collaborative effort with another institution to protect an artist's legacy. It follows the museum's previous acquisitions of the Walker Evans archive in 1994 and the Diane Arbus archive in 2007, cementing Van Der Zee’s status as one of the most important 20th-century photographers.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: The James Van Der Zee Archive
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