Artist+15

//__James Van Der Zee__//

//James Van Der Zee was born in Lenox, Massachusetts. His parents were John and Elizabeth Van Der Zee. His parents worked for President Ulysses S. Grant in New York City. James was the second of six children and enjoyed a close-knit family. His best friend was Justin Moore. As a child he learned piano, violin, and art. Van Der Zee received his first camera at the age of 14. This was a life changing gift. He soon traveled to New York with his brother and father. He was a skilled pianist and an aspiring professional violinist, but hated painting. The five-piece Harlem Orchestra was created by Van Der Zee, in which he also performed. He discovered photography as a hobby in his hometown of Lenox. At age fourteen he received his first camera from a magazine promotion. His interest with the toy camera led him to getting a slightly better camera with which he would take hundreds of photographs of the town and his family. He was only the second person in Lenox to own a camera, and he developed the images himself. This early start led him to a vast and prolific career documenting each decade in his unique style of photography.// __**art**.__ The Harlem Renaissance was an expression of African-American social thought and culture which took a place in newly-formed Black community in neighborhood of Harlem. The Harlem Renaissance flourished from early 1920 to1940 and was expressed through every cultural medium-visual art, dance, music, theatre, literature, poetry, history, politics and the consequent "white flight" of Harlem. [|//http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Van_Der_Zee#Biography//][|//http://www.huntfor.com/arthistory/C20th/harrenaiss.htm//] //[]//