Mississippi freedom marcher, Washington, D.C.

1963

Roy DeCarava

Artist, American, 1919 - 2009

The face of a young Black woman fills most of this horizontal black and white photograph. The top of her head is cropped. She has straight black hair, which sweeps down in bangs across her forehead, and her hair is either cut short or pulled back. Her lips are closed and she looks steadily with dark eyes off into the distance to our left. Only the white or light-colored collar and very top of her right shoulder, on our left, are visible, though a dark narrow strap over her shoulder near her neck suggests a purse or backpack. She is positioned slightly to our left and to our right, the left half of a young Black man’s face is cropped by the right edge of the photograph. He stands closer to us, in front of the woman’s shoulder. His face is out of focus and he looks directly at the camera. More people fill the background between the woman and man but specific features are indistinguishable.
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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    gelatin silver print

  • Credit Line

    Robert B. Menschel Fund

  • Dimensions

    image: 25.5 x 33 cm (10 1/16 x 13 in.)
    sheet: 28 x 35.5 cm (11 x 14 in.)

  • Accession

    1999.67.3


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

NGA purchase, 1999.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2015

  • In Light of the Past: Celebrating Twenty-Five Years of Collecting Photographs at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, May 3 – July 26, 2015

2017

  • Posing for the Camera: Gifts from Robert B. Menschel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2017 - 2018, unnumbered catalogue.

Bibliography

1996

  • Roy DeCarava: A Retrospective. Exh. cat. The Museum of Modern Art. New York, 1996: p. 197.

Inscriptions

lower right in graphite: DeCARAVA

Wikidata ID

Q64170317


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