The Sweet Flypaper of Life

Hill and Wang, 1967-01-01. Hardcover. Very Good. 8x5x0. [From the library of Dr. Ralph Gomes, Howard University.] Hardcover and dust jacket. Tears to jacket. Dust jacket in protective mylar cover. Good binding and cover. Shelf wear. Light foxing to top edge. Pages unmarked. 96 p., ill., 21 cm. <br> Born in New York City's Harlem neighborhood in 1919, Roy DeCarava came of age during the Harlem Renaissance, when artistic activity and achievement among African Americans flourished across the literary, musical, dramatic, and visual arts. DeCarava did not take up photography until the late 1940s, after working in painting and making prints for the posters division of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). He used his camera to produce striking studies of everyday black life in Harlem, capturing the varied textures of the neighborhood and the creative efflorescence of the Harlem Renaissance. Resisting explicit politicization, DeCarava used photography to counter what he described as "black people, not being portrayed in a serious and artistic way." <br> Dr. Gomes was a professor at Howard University for 49 years in sociology and criminology. He was also a former Olympic athlete, representing Guyana in the 1960 Rome summer Olympics. Besides his scholarly work, Gomes was active in the black liberation movement. He had an impressive and deep collection of black art, historical advertising and iconography that spoke of the passage of black people and how they sought to record their life stories. His collection spanned from slavery, to antebellum life, to Jim Crow, to the Harlem Renaissance, to sport, to the civil rights movement.