Roy DeCarava was an American artist who advanced the field of black and white fine art photography. Born in Harlem and growing up during the Harlem Renaissance, DeCarava came of age during a period of great artistic activity that influenced his practice throughout the ensuing decades. As a student, he studied painting, architecture, and sculpture; he initially turned to photography as a means of gathering visual information to use in his paintings. By the 1940s, however, he switched exclusively to photography as his primary artistic medium, preferring the immediacy of his handheld 35mm camera. DeCarava avoided a strictly documentary approach to capturing life in Harlem, instead preferring moody lighting, dark tones, and humanistic framing that combined political commentary with acute attention to formal details. As the artist stated, “I’m not a documentarian, I never have been. I think of myself as poetic, a maker of visions, dreams, and a few nightmares.”

–Daniel Mauro, from the Glenstone Field Guide