Virginia Schoolteachers, Miss Holmes and Harry McGill
Artist
James Van Der Zee
(American, 1886 - 1983)
CultureAmerican
Date1907
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsOverall, Image: 4 3/4 × 3 1/2 in. (12.1 × 8.9 cm)
Overall, Support: 5 1/4 × 3 1/2 in. (13.3 × 8.9 cm)
Overall, Support: 5 1/4 × 3 1/2 in. (13.3 × 8.9 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase
Object number88.66
Not on view
DescriptionThis is a gelatin silver print photograph.Label TextJames Van Der Zee American, 1886–1983 Virginia Schoolteachers, Miss Holmes and Harry McGill, 1907 Gelatin silver print Museum purchase 88.66 While Disfarmer captured the small, predominantly White community in which he lived, Van Der Zee is best known for his portraits of Black patrons, many taken in Harlem, New York City, where he lived and worked. Van Der Zee’s Harlem portraits feature elegantly dressed, middle-class subjects, whereas this series from his time in Virginia portrays people of color within a poor, rural community, not unlike Disfarmer’s own agrarian town. In Virginia Van Der Zee photographed town events as well as the students and teachers of Hampton Institute (now Hampton University), an instructional school founded in the 1860s for Native and African Americans.Exhibition History"Photographs from the Chrysler Museum," The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., Feb. 26 - April 23, 1989. "The Portrait in America," The Alice R. and Sol B. Frank Photography Galleries, The Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., Jan. 26 - April 8, 1990. "Photography Speaks II," The Alice R. and Sol B. Frank Photography Galleries, The Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., November 12, 1995 - March 31, 1996. "Silver Images: The Photography Collection at 25," Alice R. and Sol B. Frank Photo Galleries, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., November 5, 2003 - August 2004. "Looking Both Ways,” Peninsula Fine Arts Center, Newport News, VA, January 17 – March 22, 2015. "Facing Ourselves: Mike Disfarmer and the American Portrait," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, December 16, 2022 - May 14, 2023.Published ReferencesBrooks Johnson, _The Portrait in America_, exh. cat., The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., 1990, 10. Brooks Johnson, _Photography Speaks II: From The Chrysler Museum Collection, 70 Photographers On Their Art_ (Aperture/The Chrysler Museum of Art, 1995), 60-61.
