At Home (Woman with Flower Baskets)

Inscriptions

Signed, in ink, lower right: 1934/ NYC/ VAN DER ZEE; signed and dated, in graphite, on reverse: James Van Der Zee, 1934; stamped: G.G.G. / Photo Studio / 2065-7th Ave, / N.Y.C.

Label

This woman, smiling sweetly in a domestic setting, is fashionably dressed, wearing a cross and holding gloves and a lace hanky that radiate class and a good life. The room she occupies is well-appointed, with a silver tea set, numerous baskets of flowers, and a large box of chocolates surrounding her as she sits at a baby grand piano. The photograph was taken by James van der Zee, a photographer working in Harlem, New York, who specialized in capturing the lives of the neighborhood’s African American community. Van der Zee’s career was at its height during the first Great Migration (1910–40), a time when millions of African Americans moved from the southern United States to other parts of the country to escape racial violence and oppression and seek better economic opportunities. Many of van der Zee’s subjects wanted photographs they could send back down south to show their families that they were successful andhad made the right choice to move north.

From the 2024 exhibition And I'm Feeling Good: Relaxation and Resistance, curated by Alisa Swindell, Associate Curator of Photography

Course History

ARTH 17, History of Photography, Katie Hornstein, Spring 2013

AAAS 91.1, ENGL 53.18, The Harlem Renaissance, J. Martin Favor, Winter 2015

AAAS 67.5, GEOG 21.01, Black Consciousness and Black Feminisms, Abigail Neely, Winter 2019

AAAS 88.19, Contemporary African-American Artists, Michael Chaney, Summer 2021

GEOG 72.01/AAAS 67.50/WGSS 66.09, Black Consciousness Black Feminism, Abby Neely, Spring 2022

Exhibition History

American Works on Paper to 1950: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Friends and Owen Robertson Cheatham Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 22-December 9, 2007.

And I'm Feeling Good: Relaxation and Resistance, Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 20-April 13, 2024.

Image and Gender, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 17-May 27, 1990.

Picturing New York: Images of the City, 1890-1955, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 31-June 21, 1992.

Signs of Modern Life: Photographs from the Collections of Jane and Raphael Bernstein and Dartmouth College, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 13-October 25, 1998.

The Object World, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, ARTH2, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, February 5-March 15, 2015.

The Photograph as Document, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, English 7, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, November 2-December 15, 1996.

Unlayering Stereotypes: Selections from the Permanent Collection For Teaching Cultural Anthropology, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Anthropology 7, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 24-August 20, 1995.

Publication History

Barbara MacAdam, "Picturing New York: Images of the City,1890-1955", Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 1992, no.75.

Barbara J. MacAdam, American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Muesum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2007, p. 174, no. 144.

Provenance

Evans-Tibbs Collections, Washington, DC; sold to present collection, 1986.

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