About this artwork
Photographer Roy DeCarava employed darkness in his photographs both to depict African American skin and to encourage deeper and more sustained looking. In this photograph, taken at a dance hall on 110th Street in Harlem, the darkness makes it take a moment to distinguish the silhouettes of the two dancers in the foreground, and a moment longer to recognize in their frozen postures the gestures of minstrelsy. DeCarava later reflected: “Their figures remind me so much of the real-life experiences 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. And yet, there is something in these figures … that is very creative, that is very real and very black in the finest sense of the word.”
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Status
- On View, Gallery 4
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Department
- Photography and Media
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Artist
- Roy DeCarava
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Title
- Dancers, New York
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Place
- United States (Artist's nationality)
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Date
- Made 1956
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Medium
- Gelatin silver print
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Inscriptions
- Inscribed and signed recto, lower right, in black ink: "© Roy DeCarava 1982"; inscribed verso, lower center, in graphite: "(c) 316"; verso, lower left, in black ink: "675 #18 DANCERS 1956"
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Dimensions
- Image: 33.1 × 22.1 cm (13 1/16 × 8 3/4 in.); Paper: 35.4 × 27.7 cm (13 15/16 × 10 15/16 in.)
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Credit Line
- Gift of Lucia Woods Lindley and Daniel A. Lindley, Jr.
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Reference Number
- 1989.117
Extended information about this artwork
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
