This is the first exhibition in Britain of the internationally acclaimed photographer Roy DeCarava. Over the last forty years he has created an important document of urban life in America. The 60 black and white photographs in this exhibition reflect an outstanding career in photography. DeCarava finds his subjects in the streets, subways, parks and apartments of New York City. The people he photographs are usually anonymous, events are unimportant. But DeCarava’s work Is easily recognisable and drawn together by his compassion for the vagaries of the human condition and a remarkable understanding and control of light and shade.

Born in Harlem in 1919, DeCarava studied painting and printmaking at the Cooper Union and the Harlem Art Centre. In 1946 he began to use photography as a means of sketching ideas for paintings, after which photography became his central creative tool. In 1952 DeCarava became the first black artist to receive a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and in 1955 he published a small book of his photographs 'The Sweet Flypaper of Life’ with text by Langston Hughes. His work was included in Edward Steichen's ‘Family of Man’ exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art New York. Since 1975 he has taught photography at New York City's Hunter College.

Text by Alexandra Noble

The Photographers Gallery is grateful to Professor Sherry Turner DeCarava for curating this exhibition, and to Val Wilmer for initially proposing to the Gallery the idea of the exhibition.