Supreme has announced plans to release a hoodie and two t-shirts featuring a Roy DeCarava photograph of Malcolm X and a demonstrator in the Civil Rights Movement in the South.
Perhaps reflecting the influence of new Supreme creative director Tremaine Emory, all profits from the capsule will benefit the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem.
Born in Harlem in 1919, DeCarava attended Cooper Union where he studied painting, architecture, and sculpture. He went on to train at the Harlem Art Center and the George Washington Carver Art School, where he began to experiment with printmaking.
DeCarava initially used photography as a way to inform his paintings, but soon fell in love with the medium and would become known for his black and white silver gelatin photography. DeCarva photographed Harlem and its people, documenting a period known as the Harlem Renaissance.
DeCarava’s photographs were first exhibited in New York in 1950, and two years later, he became the first Black photographer to win a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. From 1955 to 1957, he established and ran The Photographer’s Gallery, the first gallery in the country to focus exclusively on American fine art photography. In 1975, DeCarava joined the faculty of Hunter College, where he taught undergraduate and master of fine art courses for decades.
Married for forty years to art historian Sherry Turner DeCarava, who he met at the Brooklyn Museum, the couple collaborated on exhibitions while DeCarava was alive and she continued to promote his work after his death at age 89 in 2009.
Priced at $158 for the hoodie and $44 for the t-shirt, Supreme and DeCarava’s capsule launches online at 11:00 AM EST local time on May 19, 2022 at Supreme stores and online store. A closer look at the capsule and the introduction by Supreme on Instagram.
