When considering Black photography in the twentieth century, arguably no figure looms larger than James Van Der Zee. During the Harlem Renaissance and beyond, Van Der Zee used his camera to document his community both within his studio and in the Harlem streets. From a Black couple wearing raccoon coats to family portraits, the images he produced have rightly become iconic representations of the period. Yet Van Der Zee’s work is one that defies simplistic summation, engagement, and categorization. In A Nimble Arc, Emilie Boone attempts to complicate the narrative of Van Der Zee, and to grapple with the precarious position he occupies within art history.
Boone’s analysis reveals how Van Der Zee’s photography operates within multiple different contexts, both within art history and in quotidian Black life. To fully engage with Van Der Zee, Boone asserts that the viewer must adopt a “nimble” approach – one that flexibly navigates the parameters of art and the vernacular. This allows Van Der Zee to be considered simultaneously an exceptional figure and a photographer who worked as part of a rich community of clients and fellow image makers. Such an understanding of Van Der Zee allows for greater consideration of him as a diasporic figure than has been seen in previous literature, situating Van Der Zee at the centre of a network of photographs, reproductions, and restorations that spanned the globe.
Within this monograph, Boone reframes understandings of Van Der Zee around aspects of his work that are typically underdeveloped. First, Boone places Van Der Zee within the wider context of the Harlem photographic community, thus emphasizing the agency of Van Der Zee’s clients in their choice to patronize his studio. By articulating Van Der Zee as one specific option among many, Boone indicates the social function of his practice and engages with the idea of Van Der Zee as an “exceptional” figure in art history. Second, the images that Van Der Zee produced for Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in the summer of 1924 are considered through the lens of circulation and dissemination. Considering Van Der Zee’s photographs as “moving objects” provides a major intervention within a scholarship that tends to limit him to a Harlem context, particularly within art history contexts, as exemplified by the Harlem On My Mind (1969) exhibition (71).
It is in the third chapter that Boone makes perhaps her most impactful contribution to studies of Van Der Zee. Boone convincingly articulates the importance and significance of Van Der Zee’s restoration work, and the ways in which he skilfully pivoted his artistry to embrace new photographic practices. As an aspect of Van Der Zee’s work that has often been viewed as a tragic necessity to combat economic downturn, Boone asserts not only the artistic validity of such a move, but also the levels of trust, skill, and international logistical coordination that Van Der Zee employed. Through Boone’s analysis, Van Der Zee’s restoration work is no longer a tragic footnote in his story, but a significant and empowering facet of his artistry and business practice.
Boone also meaningfully reflects on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s controversial Harlem On My Mind (1969) exhibition, where the exclusion of Black fine artists, and the choice to present work in the form of large photomurals, provoked boycotts and protests from members of the Harlem arts scene. The act of displaying Van Der Zee’s photography – and particularly their enhancement and enlargement – is considered not merely for its artistic merit, but for the impact that it had on viewers. Whilst acknowledging the well-founded criticisms of the exhibition and its marginalization of Black artists, Boone nevertheless recaptures the emotional resonance that Van Der Zee’s images would have held for the viewing public. In doing so, Boone attempts the difficult task of engaging with receptions of Van Der Zee’s work.
Throughout this text, Boone’s flair for image analysis shines through. The “nimble” approach that allows for both consideration of art-historical framings and vernacular reception is demonstrated time and again within Boone’s writing style. Early in the piece, Boone provides a compelling analysis of multiple portraits of Elder Clayhorn Martin, or “the barefoot prophet,” asserting the distinctiveness of Van Der Zee’s style. Boone’s characterization of the work as having “pictorial impact” (16) resonates with Deborah Willis’s comments in Reflections in Black (2000) that many of Van Der Zee’s images “exemplify the PICTORIAL aesthetic” (42). Further sustained engagement with Van Der Zee’s adaption of pictorialism may have provided a further opportunity for “nimble” analysis, as at times he arguably tailored Victorian portrait aesthetics to a Black clientele.
This text significantly extends Deborah Willis’s work on Van Der Zee into new spheres, yet leaves scope for further exploration. Both Willis and Boone give some consideration of the role of Van Der Zee’s wife, Gaynella Greenlee. Due to her whiteness, the Van Der Zees’ studio was opened in her name (Guarantee Studio), with his subsequent studio being named for her (GGG Studio). As well as providing administrative support, Gaynella also took images. Notably, her presence enabled Van Der Zee to navigate societal constraints to take nude photography. In Willis’s essay “They Knew Their Names,” published as part of the Smithsonian’s 1993 exhibition, Van Der Zee is quoted, “there was no difficulty to make these pictures because my wife was there too, and she’d just undress them and put them up in the pose there and then I’d set up the camera” (20). As James Van Der Zee’s work is explored through more diverse approaches, it would be intriguing to consider how Gaynella features more substantially in Boone’s framework.
In the conclusion to this work, Boone comments that Van Der Zee may be too distinct a figure to neatly map the model used in this book onto other photographers. Because of the unique way in which Van Der Zee is presented both in art history and in the vernacular turn, this may well be true. Yet the imagination and innovation that Boone injects into the book’s analysis of Van Der Zee is certainly a model that should be followed. By disrupting a simplistic understanding of Van Der Zee, Boone provides a more nuanced, diasporic, and empowering picture of one of the most significant image makers of the twentieth century.
