Roy DeCarava, the child of a single mother in Harlem who turned that neighborhood into his canvas, becoming one of the most important photographers of his generation by chronicling the lives of its ordinary people and its jazz giants, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 89 and lived in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.
His death was announced by Sherry Turner DeCarava, his wife and an art historian who has written about his work.
Mr. DeCarava trained to be a painter, but while using a camera to gather images for his printmaking work he began to gravitate toward photography, partly because of its immediacy but also because of the limitations he saw all around him for a black artist in a segregated nation. A black painter, to be an artist, he once said, had to join the white world or not function--had to accept the values of white culture.
His death was announced by Sherry Turner DeCarava, his wife and an art historian who has written about his work.
Mr. DeCarava trained to be a painter, but while using a camera to gather images for his printmaking work he began to gravitate toward photography, partly because of its immediacy but also because of the limitations he saw all around him for a black artist in a segregated nation. A black painter, to be an artist, he once said, had to join the white world or not function--had to accept the values of white culture.
