Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
When photography first emerged in the mid-1800s, few embraced the medium with as much fervor as the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who sat for his portrait a whopping 160 times. And the most photographed man of the 19th century encouraged his African-American brothers and sisters to do the same, in an effort to combat negative stereotypes about blacks during and right after the Civil War.
As a new initiative by the Metropolitan Museum of Art discovered, they continued to heed his call long after that.
“African American Portraits: Photographs From the 1940s and 1950s” features more than 150 intimate, largely anonymous shots culled from studios across the country. That’s just a small sampling of the thousands the Met has collected in the past four years, in an attempt to beef up its historical photos of everyday Americans, particularly African-Americans.
“The museum collects the entire encyclopedic history of photography,” curator Jeff Rosenheim tells The Post. “But as an American institution, we are particularly interested in the American experience, and up till now we had not acquired a large collection of African-American portraits.”
The exhibit opens with a daguerreotype of Douglass, as well as a stately portrait of fellow abolitionist Sojourner Truth. Formerly enslaved, as Douglass was, she also used photography to claim ownership of her image and body.
But it wasn’t until the mid-20th century that others embraced photography and its possibilities. Young men and women left their families to fight in World War II, and defense industries employed people who never before worked outside the home or farm. Suddenly, Americans had money, and wanted to use it to commemorate their accomplishments, wealth and patriotism. Enterprising shutterbugs — equipped with lighter, cheaper and faster cameras — began opening up studios to cater to them.
The photos here, ranging from wallet-size to 5 inches by 7 inches, show proud moments in many black American lives: the young graduate in cap and gown; a dapper man in a fedora cradling a newborn; a soldier brandishing not one but two revolvers. Painted backdrops portray elegant sitting rooms adorned with rich carpets or pastoral scenes. Props like telephones signify wealth and advancement, as well as the message to keep in touch.
Rosenheim hopes that some visitors can help identify some of the unnamed sitters in the pictures — and that the show inspires viewers to think about how they use photography, whether on a Leica or on their iPhone, in their own lives.
“Pictures tell us something powerful about the camera’s role in our society and in issues of identity,” says Rosenheim. “How do you become the person you want to be? That’s a question every portrait photograph can ask.”
“African American Portraits” runs through Oct. 8 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1000 Fifth Ave.); 212-535-7710, MetMuseum.org
