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James Van der Zee
Evening Attire
1922
Gelatin silver print
American Art Museum, Smithsonian Institution
Museum purchase through the Julia D. Strong Endowment and the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program, 1994.57.3
LL/91709
Exhibition label (Accessed: 29 June 2019)
VanDerZee is best known for the studio portraits he made in Harlem after World War I. His sensitivity and the pride he felt from living and working within the community are clear in elegant and graceful images that challenged prevailing stereotypes. The sitter in Evening Attire is dressed in a beaded evening gown, an elegant, full hat, and a foxtail wrap; she holds a spray of flowers. Her stance, coupled with the backdrop, the brocade table cover, and a decorative figurine, evokes formal Victorian home interiors seen in Edwardian portraiture and nineteenth century cartes de visite, the small photographs people used as calling cards in the late nineteenth century.
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