Sombre, tender photos of final goodbyes during the Harlem Renaissance

At the age of 96, James Van Der Zee photographed Jean-Michel Basquiat rocking a suit jacket, tie, and paint splattered jeans, Siamese cat nestled in his lap for the January 1983 issue of Interview magazine. The sepia-toned photographs fused the timeless glamour of the Harlem Renaissance with the renegade spirit of ​’80s New York to sumptuous effect, signalling the passing of the crown between kings. 

Van Der Zee, who would pass that June, died as he lived: on his terms. Born in Lenox, Massachusetts in 1886, Van Der Zee purchased his first camera in 1900 at the age of 14. In 1916, Van Der Zee, then 30, and Gaynella Greenlee – who later became his second wife – opened Gaynella Greenlee Guarantee Photo Studio on 135^th Street during the first flush of the Harlem Renaissance. G.G.G. Studio, as it was popularly known, would move locations over the next six decades, but always remained the heart and soul of the community. 

At a time when Black photographers were largely excluded from the art world, academy, and photography industry, Van Der Zee’s prospects were tied to the shifting fortunes of Harlem. As personal cameras became popular, studio photography was less in demand, and Van Der Zee fell out of the public eye until 1969. That year, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America, 1900 – 1968 to community protests staged at its vaunted front steps for the failure to include Black artists in the exhibition. 

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Instead, the Met presented photographs by Gordon Parks and Van Der Zee, then 82, not as artworks in their own right but as ethnographic documentation. Against the backdrop of civil rights and the Black Arts Movement, Van Der Zee’s rightful return to the public eye affirmed his place in the pantheon of 20^th century photographers. More recently, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Studio Museum in Harlem established the James Van Der Zee Archive, the third photography archive to be acquired by the Met, following only Walker Evans and Diane Arbus. 

During the final decade of his life, Van Der Zee came out of retirement to photograph luminaries like Basquiat, Muhammad Ali, and Romare Bearden, as well as publish two books: a 1973 survey of his work, and The Harlem Book of The Dead, the 1978 classic now back in print in a facsimile edition from Primary Information. The book, conceived and edited by sculptor and filmmaker Camille Billops, weaves together Van Der Zee’s funerary portraiture captioned by poems by Owen Dodson, an expansive interview with the artist, and a heartfelt introduction by Toni Morrison. 

In Harlem rituals of death, Billops saw a continuum to The Book of the Dead, the ancient Egyptian funerary text detailing spells to ferry the soul from the body through the underworld to reach the afterlife. ​“Everything that is needed for the journey has been accounted for: flowers, ​‘best’ clothes, friends, songs, farewells, and, for the dead children, never-slept-in cribs, empty baby bottles, toys and ribbons,” Billops wrote in the book. 

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Van Der Zee made these photographs at a time when the passing of Black folks went unreported by the mainstream media, his work forming a cudgel against erasure and disinformation. Van Der Zee charged $35 a photograph ($650USD in 2025), a testament to the inscribed value of funerary portraiture. Made in the funeral parlour, the dead were laid among great swaths of satin, surrounded by a garden of roses in bloom, tucked comfortably inside magnificent coffins, ready to receive mourners with dignity and repose, before leaving this mortal coil for paradise. 

Van Der Zee and Billops’s lively conversation runs throughout the book, snapping readers out of the pictorial reverie and back to earth, their words like hushed whispers during the funeral service. When asked, ​“How do you see death, Mr. Van Der Zee?”, he replied, ​“So when one more clean shirt lasts me the rest of time. When I pass out on this long last journey that I shall ever make and I cease to sooth with soft words and song a heart where there is ache. I trust that tears will dim a few eyes and those who do weep will soon forget.” 

And with that James Van Der Zee lit a cigar, his piece forever said in the stories that make up The Harlem Book of the Dead. 

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The Harlem Book of the Dead by James Van Der Zee, Owen Dodson, Camille Billops is published by Primary Information.

Miss Rosen is a freelance arts and photography writer, follow her on X.

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