As notable Harlem historian Jonathan Gill pointed out in our last history post, the late James Van Der Zee saw a revival of his work in the more modern decade and took photos of celebrities of the era in the latter part of his life. After a retrospective at the Met in 1969, the photographer known for documenting the exuberant arrival of the African-American middle class to Harlem in the early part of the century would then become a celebrity photographer until his passing in 1983. The above photo was taken of Jean-Michel Basquiat in the style that Van Der Zee made famous and looks even quite fashionably apropos today.
By the way, Van Der Zee's name suggests his American roots go all the way back to the early Dutch settlers of the New Netherlands (though there were no first or second generation Dutch Harlemites with this name). I've never been able to quite nail this down--official record keeping, such as noting births, marriages, name-changes, etc., when it comes to Africans or African-Americans, free or enslaved, has been spotty for centuries--but there's plenty of room for an authoritative biography of this extraordinary man.
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