Mar 30, 2023 - Sale 2631

Sale 2631 - Lot 237

Price Realized: $ 1,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(LITERATURE.) James L. Allen, photographer. Early signed portrait of Langston Hughes. Gelatin silver print, 10 x 8 inches, with photographer's embossed stamp on recto and inked stamp on verso; losses in margin of two corners, moderate wear and creasing, three skillfully repaired closed tears and other light conservation; signed and dated "Sincerely, Langston Hughes" in ink on recto and additionally signed on verso. New York, 10 November 1931

Additional Details

Black photographer James Latimer Allen (1907-1977) was a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance. We trace no other examples of this portrait, although a very similar portrait from the same sitting is held in the Langston Hughes papers at Yale's Beinecke Library.