Over the course of six decades, American artist Roy DeCarava (1919–2009) produced a singular collection of black-and-white photographs of modern life that combine formal acuity with an intimate and deeply human treatment of his subject matter. Grounded by a unified theory of the visual plane, his work displays a subtle mastery of tonal and spatial elements and devotion to the medium of photography as a means of artistic expression. DeCarava created images that carry an emotional impact in their immediate relationship to the viewer, while also revealing less-than-visible terrains. DeCarava’s pioneering work privileged the aesthetic qualities of the medium, carrying the ability to reach the viewer as a counterpoint to the view of photography as mere chronicle or document and helping it to gain acceptance as an art form in its own right.

Radiclani Clytus is an academic and independent filmmaker who works at the intersections of new media and nineteenth-century American literature and visual culture. He has written extensively on transatlantic abolitionist imagery and is the editor of two compilations of prose by Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa: Blue Notes (2000) and Condition Red (2017). As a documentary filmmaker, Clytus has received commissions from Luhring Augustine, Steinway & Sons, and the United States National Park Service. His first film, Looks of a Lot, premiered at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and his latest feature, Grammar, explores the interdisciplinary language of creative expression. He is the principal of RoundO Films.

Sherry Turner DeCarava is an art historian, curator, and independent scholar in the fields of traditional arts and contemporary American photography. Serving as the executive director, the principal focus of her professional career has been the development of The DeCarava Archives, which supports exhibition and scholarly research projects related to the work of her late husband Roy DeCarava. She is the author of two definitive texts on his photography, published in Roy DeCarava: Photographs (1981) and Roy DeCarava: A Retrospective (1996). In 2014, she initiated First Print Press, beginning a process to republish classic Roy DeCarava books, while bringing new photographic projects into print.