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You could tell he was getting serious about his craft when the alcohol and social gatherings came to a halt. Seated in a tense stillness—he loathed solitude, yet, at his core, he existed apart—he’d place a stack of lined paper on his writing board and, with his firm, well-formed script, begin to transcribe a reality that gave credence to his creativity, along with his departed.
The departed were constantly with Owen—Owen Dodson, a wordsmith, theatrical innovator, and former professor at Howard University, recognized as the initial director of James Baldwin’s inaugural play, “The Amen Corner,” in 1955. (The drama department at Howard hesitated due to Baldwin’s figures employing “Black English” at a period when a mid-Atlantic accent was favored, but Dodson proceeded nonetheless.)
That occurred considerably prior to my encounter with Dodson, in the early seventies, at the age of fourteen. A woman who’d been acquainted with him since grade school in Brooklyn made the introduction—she was now an educator working alongside my mother and, similarly to my mother, possessed a conviction in my potential as a scribe. Shortly afterward, Dodson extended an invitation for me to visit his home and collect some books he wished to donate; over time, our dynamic evolved, transitioning my informal benefactor into my intricate guide. I dedicated a significant portion of my after-school hours in his exquisitely decorated apartment on West Fifty-first Street, accumulating a vast amount of knowledge. I observed elements previously encountered solely in literature or within my mind’s eye: striking Cocteau illustrations, old-fashioned settees, standalone candle holders reminiscent of a nineteenth-century stage production. Dodson additionally housed an extensive assortment of art and photography publications, notably a first print of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s “The Decisive Moment,” coupled with a volume by and concerning an image-maker unknown to me, bearing a Dutch-sounding surname: James Van Der Zee.
“The Van Der Zee Men, Lenox, Massachusetts,” 1908.
Bearing the designation “The World of James Van Derzee,” the publication, issued in 1969 and incorporating a considerable array of Van Der Zee’s renderings of African Americans in the early part of the twentieth century, possessed a frontal illustration that captivated me just as profoundly as the depiction of a Matisse collage featured on the face of the Cartier-Bresson compilation. Van Der Zee’s highlighted image revealed four sharply attired African American men, all flaunting bowlers. Three displayed bow ties, whereas the remaining, an older man characterized by a prominent gray mustache, donned a tie and waistcoat, finished with a fob watch nestled within. It evaded me that these gentlemen had primped for the photograph; conversely, they exemplified the charm of regular sophistication. The image was hued, sepia-toned, though, despite such a filter, I could discern the ease the men shared when together—a tranquility foreign to my experience.
I yearned for complete knowledge about these individuals. (It wasn’t until later that I realized it was an image of Van Der Zee, his brothers, and their patriarch.) Within painting and etching, one initially desires knowledge of the artisan; in photography, the subject captivates. The preeminent photographers frame their visuals with a sense of awed reserve: Observe this! And what Van Der Zee aspired for us to perceive within that photograph, and within all his photographs at that juncture, was the seamless co-existence of the remarkable and ordinary within a singular frame, along with his keenness on every element, inclusive of those deceased.
Portrait of Van Der Zee’s mother, Susan, after her death.
Van Der Zee’s genesis occurred in Lenox, Massachusetts, during 1886. His progenitors relocated a few years prior, from New York, where their vocations consisted of maid and butler duties for Ulysses S. Grant. They seemingly transitioned to Massachusetts, striving for amplified prospects for their lineage. (They fostered six offspring.) The pair thrived within Lenox, ultimately possessing their own abode, akin to Van Der Zee’s grandparents, residing in the neighboring house.
Black families remained scant in Lenox, yet the Van Der Zees erected their unique ethnic enclave. A segment of their progeny leaned towards artistic inclinations: one daughter drafted; others, inclusive of James, performed music. In 1906, at the juncture of his twentieth year, James, by then a blossoming artist, journeyed to New York, engaging in employment as a server and lift operator, prior to initiating his first commercial studio, situated on 135th Street, within Harlem, during 1916. Subsequently, he realized, in his discourse with the lensman Reginald McGhee, that “the generation of an image with ‘the little box’ was easier than with pigment and brushes.” He embraced the world of photography, mirroring the fervor associated with amateurs, although, even within his initial frames, a sense of individuality manifested, echoing a romantic anthropologist driven by sentiment, wonder, and inherent purpose, diverging from unwavering professionalism.
Within Harlem, Van Der Zee captured his now celebrated photographs, immortalizing an array of subjects, spanning from African American noblewomen, entertainment personalities, couples, newly-weds, political figures, to dandies. He transitioned to 272 Lenox Avenue, gradually acquiring recognition as Harlem’s resident “picture-taking man.” His moodily illuminated, primarily monochrome images serve as a potent evocation of a world distinguished from, rather than oblivious to, the downtown white milieu.
“I could invariably detect beauty where it seemed absent,” Van Der Zee confided to artist Camille Billops during 1978. “And I reasoned, presuming the presence of two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, I possessed the ability to enhance their essence.” While he potentially amplified his subject’s perceptions of their visages, he emboldened, as discernible within the visuals, their emotions of well-being. Within his studio’s temporal realm, anxieties of judgment or vilification dissipated; his universe, composed via his large-format camera, proved as ample and compassionate as the external one lacked.
During 1976, Owen Dodson and his sister, Edith, posed for Van Der Zee. (By that point, Van Der Zee resided on West Ninety-fourth Street, having been ousted from his residence and studio on Lenox Avenue. “We encountered a grim period with a legal representative who was ostensibly advocating for us,” he divulged to Billops, “and lost the residence of forty-three years to the financial institution.”) Within the snapshot, Dodson, flaunting what Marianne Moore might categorize as a “minimal” chapeau, reclines upon a chair (identical to the throne-like chair artist Jean-Michel Basquiat settled within for his portrait several years post). He clasps one of the chair’s armrests, as Edith stands, beaming, proximal to him. Later, Dodson revealed that he gripped the chair firmly to avoid teleportation back to the nineteen-twenties. Effectively, the solitary component recognizable as pertaining to its epoch rests within Edith’s elegantly trimmed Afro.
I presume Billops orchestrated the sitting, being a confidante of Dodson’s. Amidst all the striking women that called on him, she reigned supreme. Born and raised within Los Angeles, Billops encapsulated the globe. Her eye shadow channeled Nefertiti—all exquisitely configured lines narrowing into a tip. She frequently plaited her tresses with radiant strings. She would occasionally wear slacks acquired from her global peregrinations, coupled with intricate embroidered bodices fit for enshrining within any gallery. She functioned as a one-person United Nations. Moreover, she fulfilled the role of connector. She and her spouse, the gracious and marvelous theater historiographer James Hatch, whose vital compendiums aided in perpetuating African American theater, conducted and documented exchanges with playwrights and artists inside their loft, across afternoons perpetually infused with the thrill of discovery.
The momentum of interest in Van Der Zee’s opus surged during 1969, concurrent with the Met’s controversial “Harlem on My Mind” exhibition—he featured more images within the exhibit than any other artist—however, he lingered in relative obscurity outside the circles of art and photography. I trust Billops aimed to rectify such a slight, along with motivating Dodson to reinstate his writing pursuits (having abstained from publishing since 1970) and to feel embraced within a world—the sphere of poetry—incessantly advancing.
The ensuing collaborative undertaking, “The Harlem Book of the Dead” (recently revived, coupled with an afterword penned by Karla F. C. Holloway), accommodated a suite of Van Der Zee’s funerary illustrations, visuals capturing the deceased, frequently embellished with ethereal montages: infants enveloped within coffins adorned with projections of Jesus and effervescent blossoms; a widow enshrouded in sable garb, gazing softly into emptiness, positioned by her husband’s ajar coffin; a juvenile with a portrait of his living self juxtaposed with his lifeless counterpart; a fledgling couple beaming downward at their deceased child, cradled in the father’s embrace; a beauty adorned with elongated hair and porcelain skin, near overwhelmed by the sumptuous silk she reclines upon, capped by a winged celestial being. Just as Van Der Zee sought to refine the semblance of his living subjects, he strived for death—or, accurately, grief—to present favorably. Dodson bore the responsibility of crafting verbiage echoing within the visuals. He toiled on these sonnets, throughout my recurrent visits, exuding a distinctive elation—the snapshots rekindled stagnant voices nestled within his essence, and, following his vocalization of the poem accompanying the image of the young woman ensconced within the lavish coffin, I deduced his autobiographical intent:
I had a river in my mind
Where I had drowned myself
So many times I felt sharp flesh
Of water underneath
My eyelids; and between my toes
The minnows smuggle time
To hoard it where all shells begin
To grow what children on the shore
Have always begged to listen to.
Still navigating boyhood, I had previously not witnessed a publication’s genesis at such an intimate vantage. Periodically, Dodson would contact me at my residence, intending to vocalize a new verse—“Child, give an ear to this”—and I grasped the intensity of his exhilaration within the undertaking, as well. Perched within his living quarters, or atop the bed residing within his guest chamber, I reminisce on observing and studying these unconventional visuals, imbued with the caliber of a phantasm or reverie—the singular venue for the recurrent reunification of the living and the deceased.
Spanning from Billops’ lengthy discourse with Van Der Zee, entwined throughout the publication, I learned of his prevalent hiring by the bereaved to capture visuals of their dear ones ensconced in mortuaries, with the entrancing facets of artistic guidance, periodically supplied by the families—one deceased man grasping a newspaper, feigning literacy, for example—acting to mitigate the perception of death. For his commitments, Van Der Zee secured his standard compensation—thirty-five dollars per shot.
One image that held my attention rested upon a wide-angle capture of a cadaver housed within a coffin, encompassed by a couple attired in somber shades on either flank. Van Der Zee embedded an ethereal entity above the couple positioned on the right, yet my attention fixated on the dynamism encapsulated within the image: both women embodied within the portrait had angled their heads lightly upon exposure. Did the transition of death become increasingly marked in contrast with this testament to mobility, to existence? Proximal to the photograph’s left are these few lines authored by Dodson:
The dead are the signs
Of our cross;
The bury-hour:
Our living crucifixion.
Dodson would at times weave Van Der Zee’s recollection of a given sitting into his literary works. During alternate periods, his poems channeled ventriloquism for the permanently mute. His compositions imbued the book with the aura of a silent motion picture, portraying a sequence of visual, title card, visual, each contributing context to its successor. Along with the accumulation of compositions—even retrospectively, I identified this as Dodson’s prime verse output—transpired the metaphysical musings inspired by the visuals and verses: What defines a visual record of the deceased? Does the subjective cosmos of verbiage possess a capacity and pertinence comparable to the verity encapsulated within the photographs?
My apprehension didn’t stem from the visuals so much as the sensation of my soul spiraling akin to a vortex when scrutinizing them, notably upon witnessing photographs of newborns. Encapsulated within one such image, a nursling grasped a feeding bottle it would never sip from. I maintained no prior cognizance of postmortem photography, and, in all likelihood, neither did Van Der Zee. However, I speculated: By rendering death—so intimately entwined with the exchange of existence for non-existence—overtly visible, did we elevate the honor of the deceased? Or did we venerate ourselves? What bestowed the right for us to partake in the chronicles of those departed?
I remain unaware of who contemplated recruiting Toni Morrison to furnish the preamble to “The Harlem Book of the Dead.” My instinct gravitates toward Dodson initiating contact. She existed as his student at Howard, concurrent with his professorial tenure within the theater department. He retained memories of her as “a magnificent actress”; he clearly sensed her omnipotence. Within her condensed foreword, Morrison inscribed, “The gravity of this remarkable concert among Black subject, Black poet, Black photographer, and Black artist fixates upon the deceased, underscoring the veracity of the African proverb: ‘The Ancestor perseveres as long as recollection endures.’ ” The publication wielded a substantial influence upon Morrison. Countless years into the future, upon unfolding her 1992 novel “Jazz,” I discerned within Morrison’s narrative of “spooky” love, a saga portrayed by Van Der Zee within one of his photographic works. It encompassed a portrayal of a maiden reposing inside a coffin, her cranium crowned by flora, with additional blooms placed upon her sternum. Within the caption, Van Der Zee divulged:
She was the one I think was shot by her sweetheart at a party with a noiseless gun. She complained of being sick at the party and friends said, “Well, why don’t you lay down?” and they taken her in the room and laid her down. After they . . . loosened her clothes, they saw the blood on her dress. They asked her about it and she said, “I’ll tell you tomorrow, yes, I’ll tell you tomorrow.” She was just trying to give him a chance to get away. For the picture, I placed the flowers on her chest.
Morrison rechristened her Dorcas, and, resonant of the woman embedded within Dodson’s accompanying verse—“They lean over me and say: / ‘Who deathed you who’ ”—the expiring maiden abstains from exposing her consort. By such means, Dorcas conveys to the encompassing world that she and the man responsible for her demise shall remain lovers perpetually, spanning from the tangible to the celestial.
Sourse: newyorker.com