Inspirations

 

James Van Der Zee

The Expanding the Walls eight-month photography-based program uses the work of renowned photographer James Van Der Zee (1886–1983) as a catalyst for discussion and art-making.

The work of James Van Der Zee is central to the Expanding the Walls curriculum and culminating exhibition. Van Der Zee is one of the most celebrated photographers of the Harlem Renaissance—with a career that spanned over seventy years—and is a master of the constructed image, photographing his subjects in the way they aspired to be seen.

In 2021, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and Mrs. Donna Van Der Zee jointly established the James Van Der Zee Archive at The Met, a landmark collaborative initiative to research, conserve, and provide full public access to the remarkable catalogue of photographs by James Van Der Zee. The James Van Der Zee Archive is the third archive of an American photographer to be acquired by The Met, and its first collaboration with a partner institution to safeguard the legacy of an individual artist.

Over the next several years, The Met will be working in partnership with the Studio Museum and Mrs. Van Der Zee, and alongside a diverse team of historians, curators, registrars, and conservators, to fully research, archive, catalogue, conserve, and digitize the entire archive to make it fully available to the public.

Some of the photographs shown below come from the James Van Der Zee Archive. They, along with other Van Der Zee works in the Studio Museum's collection, were selected by the Expanding the Walls participants and demonstrate the breadth of Van Der Zee's practice.

 
 

James Van Der Zee

Man, 1935

Gelatin silver print 

James Van Der Zee Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; print from the shared collection of The Studio Musuem in Harlem and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2021 

© James Van Der Zee Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
 

James Van Der Zee

Musical Trio, 1938

Gelatin silver print

James Van Der Zee Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; print from the shared collection of The Studio Musuem in Harlem and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2021 

© James Van Der Zee Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
 

James Van Der Zee

Couple, 1945

Gelatin silver print

James Van Der Zee Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; print from the shared collection of The Studio Musuem in Harlem and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2021 

© James Van Der Zee Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
 
A black-and-white image of a seated woman wearing a bracelet and a dark dress is overlaid with the sheet music of a song titled “Oh Promise Me.”
 
 

James Van Der Zee

"Oh Promise Me," 1925

Gelatin silver print

James Van Der Zee Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; print from the shared collection of The Studio Museum in Harlem and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2021

© James Van Der Zee Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
A black-and-white image of four Black women in tiaras and floral-patterned white dresses, some standing and some sitting, all are smiling.
 

James Van Der Zee

Musical Quartet, 1950s

Gelatin silver print

James Van Der Zee Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; print from the shared collection of The Studio Museum in Harlem and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2021

© James Van Der Zee Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
 

James Van Der Zee

Girl Standing with Doll and Dog, 1939

Gelatin silver print

James Van Der Zee Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; print from the shared collection of The Studio Musuem in Harlem and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2021 

© James Van Der Zee Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art