James Van Der Zee

For four decades of the 20th century, James Van Der Zee documented Harlem, a vibrant center of African American culture that was once the Dutch settlement Haarlem. While Miss Suzie Porter and Garveyite Family depict Black middle-class subjects in Harlem, The Heiress portrays a domestic worker who recently inherited the home, furnishings, and art collection of her wealthy white employer.

Van Der Zee photographed important figures from Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) to artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988), but his main subjects were ordinary people, many of whom had come to Harlem from across the US, the Caribbean, and Africa in search of opportunity.