James Van Der Zee photographs Eubie Blake

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

This gelatin silver print depicts a crowded room of bystanders, lined along the left and right sides of the frame, observing and capturing the process of the centrally placed photographer, James Van Der Zee, as he photographs Eubie Blake. The central point of focus in the image is Eubie Blake who remains seated in the glow of deliberately placed studio lighting fixtures in front of a backdrop used to create the illusion of an elaborate interior room. Van Der Zee sits on a stool in the foreground of the image, mostly in silhouette, with his PL arm reaching to adjust the standing camera just left of the center of the image. A woman, Van Der Zee's wife Donna Mussenden Van Der Zee, stands behind Van Der Zee's camera to assist his process and is slightly out of focus.

Explore Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture ↗