May 07, 2020 - Sale 2534

Sale 2534 - Lot 369

Price Realized: $ 312
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(POLITICS.) Group of press photographs of Congressman Adam Clayton Powell. 44 press photographs, most of them about 8 x 10 inches, a few smaller, and one of them 11 x 14 inches, most with captions on verso or in the negative; generally minor wear, variety of inked stamps and press notations on verso. Vp, 1953-68

Additional Details

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (1908-1972) served as a United States Representative from New York from 1945 to 1970; at the time of his election, he was one of only two African-Americans in Congress. These photographs document many of the highs and lows of his career, including one with Congressman Jacob Javits in 1953, one at an event supporting the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956, one with Fidel Castro at the Cuban presidential palace in 1959, one with fellow Congressmen Charles Diggs and John Conyers in 1965, and several unflattering paparazzi photographs from during his time out of office in 1967. The last and largest photo shows Powell gesturing at a University of California event in 1968 (illustrated); it is an original print from the files of the Pasadena Independent Star-News.