ROY DECARAVA (1919 2009) Dancers

Sale 2458 - Lot 156

Price Realized: $ 37,500

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 15,000 - $ 25,000

ROY DECARAVA (1919-2009)
Dancers. Silver print, the image measuring 12 3/4x8 1/2 inches (32.4x21.6 cm.), the sheet 14x11 inches (35.6x27.9 cm.), with DeCarava's block-lettered signature, date, and copyright, in pencil, on recto. 1956; printed 1981

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Additional Details

From the Witkin Gallery, New York, New York; to the Collection of John Bennette, in 1992.

Roy DeCarava's photographs frequently drew on his urban experiences in Harlem, where he lived for many years. Both a painter and a printmaker, DeCarava began exploring photography in the late 1940s, and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1952. Subsequently, he collaborated with Langston Hughes on The Sweet Flypaper of Life, which was published in 1955.

A master image-maker and skilled photographic printer, DeCarava's photographs were created with a sophisticated, nuanced eye. His accomplished analogue darkroom work resulted in stunning prints that capture the subtleties of a picture's mid-range or shadow tones along with its highlights. He remains an important crossover figure who was the subject of a retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1996.

Galassi, Roy DeCarava: A Retrospective (Museum of Modern Art), p. 211.