DECARAVA, ROY

born Dec. 9, 1919, New York, N.Y., U.S. American photographer whose images of black Americans chronicled daily life in Harlem, the Civil Rights Movement, and jazz musicians. In 1952 he became the first black photographer to receive a Guggenheim fellowship. DeCarava studied painting and printmaking in New York City at Cooper Union School of Art, Harlem Community Art Center, and George Washington Carver Art School. He took up photography in the mid-1940s, capturing urban scenes of his native Harlem. Many of these photos were compiled in the book The Sweet Flypaper of Life (1955), with text written by poet Langston Hughes. In 1958 DeCarava left his job as a commercial illustrator to pursue a full-time career as a freelance photographer. DeCarava's interest in education led him to found a photography gallery in 1955 and an association of black photographers in 1963. He also taught at the Cooper Union School of Art, in 196972, and at Hunter College, from 1975. In 1983 his portraits of jazz musicians, which he began in 1956, were shown in an exhibit at the Studio Museum in Harlem. In 1996 he was the subject of a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.