8 x 10 in. (including margins) unmounted silver gelatin photograph (wear to edges and corners, including creasing to each corner). Signed and dated in negative at lower right corner, "VanDerZee, 1938." Verso with 3 "G.G.G. Photo Studio, 2077-7th Ave., N.Y.C." ink stamps, and penciled number "5223." 

James VanDerZee was best known for his photographs of African American New Yorkers. He began his career as a darkroom assistant in 1915, but opened his own studio in Harlem the following year. Throughout World War I, his business blossomed, and following the war, he produced hundreds of portraits of Harlem's expanding middle class population. Some of VanDerZee's more famous subjects include Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Joe Louis, Florence Mills, Countee Cullen, and Marcus Garvey.