Blumstein's Sales Girls
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image: 17.78 × 23.81 cm (7 × 9 3/8 in.) sheet: 20.32 × 25.4 cm (8 × 10 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund
Accession Number
2021.33.3
Art Historical Context
James Van Der Zee's *Blumstein's Sales* (1930) offers a poised glimpse into the daily lives of young Black women working at Blumstein's department store Harlem during a pivotal era. As a leading photographer of Black urban life, Van Der Zee chronicled the Harlem Renaissance and its aftermath, capturing his subjects with dignity and elegance. This gelatin silver print, measuring about 7 x 9⅜ inches, showcases salesgirls in their professional attire, likely posed in the store's bustling environment, reflecting the aspirations and realities of the Black working class amid the onset of the Great D...
About the Artist
James Van Der Zee
James Augustus Van Der Zee (1886–1983) was born on June 29 in Lenox, Massachusetts, into a family where he quickly displayed talents in music, mastering the violin and piano while aspiring to a professional career as a violinist. Self-taught in photography from age fourteen, he acquired his first camera around 1900 and documented his family and small-town New England community, providing one of th...