[Young Woman Cradling "Positively NO TRUST" Sign]
James Van Der Zee is known as the great chronicler of life in Harlem in the 1920s, but he also had a bustling commercial studio into the 1930s and 1940s in which he made advertising images for black owned businesses. This charming photograph is his version of a "No Trust" sign--a then common commercial sign (referred to by Herman Melville in his 1857 novel "The Confidence Man") reminding patrons that the establishment does keep tabs or credit.
Artwork Details
- Title: [Young Woman Cradling "Positively NO TRUST" Sign]
- Artist: James Van Der Zee (American, Lenox, Massachusetts 1886–1983 Washington, D.C.)
- Date: 1926
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: Image: 5 9/16 × 4 9/16 in. (14.1 × 11.6 cm)
Sheet: 6 11/16 × 4 3/4 in. (17 × 12 cm) - Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Gift of Arthur and Susan Fleischer, 2016
- Object Number: 2016.722
- Rights and Reproduction: © James Van Der Zee Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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James Van Der Zee
1920s
James Van Der Zee
1920s
James Van Der Zee
1920s
James Van Der Zee
1925
James Van Der Zee
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