Ralph Ellison was one of the most influential writers of his time, known for his groundbreaking novel "Invisible Man" which established him as a literary icon.
Ellison's novel is considered a milestone in American literature because it takes the reader on a journey from the mundane to a surreal world of African American life. This world is depicted as the author experienced it.
However, his lifelong engagement with photography is often overlooked. This lesser-known aspect of his career takes center stage in the collection "Photographer".
Spanning several decades, this collection showcases Ellison's multifaceted artistic vision through his captivating photographs.
Ellison began exploring photography while studying at Tuskegee Institute, an all-black, prestigious school in Alabama. According to Raz-Russo, he studied music but was also interested in sculpture and briefly talked about photographing his sculptures. But began his photographic journey after moving to New York City in 1936.
His passion for photography grew when he moved to Harlem in the 1940s, where he turned it into a serious hobby and a source of income. Alongside installing and repairing HiFi audio equipment, he also took author headshots. With his camera in tow, he explored the city as an outsider.
The title of the book, "Ralph Ellison: Photographer," pays homage to the phrase he used on his invoice letterhead. For Ellison, photography was more than just a hobby or a source of income. It was an art form, a note-taking tool, and a creative outlet. He used it to express his identity as an individual and an American, always looking for innovative forms of expression.
The book features two sections, each telling a visual story. The first section showcases Ellison's photographs from the 1940s and 50s, including portraits of his wife, Fanny, and his partnership with Parks. Many readers scour Ellison's images for clues to the origins of his novels' characters and plots. Raz-Russo noted that much of his early writing contains descriptive passages that could have been drawn from his photographs of everyday life in Harlem. These photos served as essential field notes for his writing and a means of supplementing his income.
“Untitled” (New York City), 1940s, a photograph by Ralph Ellison of a young man transmits the power of his prose. It recalls the charismatic Tod Clifton in “Invisible Man.”Credit...The Ralph and Fanny Ellison Charitable Trust
Shot on medium and large format cameras, as well as the more wieldy 35mm, the photographs showcase his artistic versatility. They depict intimate moments with friends and family members, as well as everyday life on the city streets.
Ellison's photographic compositions reflect the essence of his iconic writing. His fictional works maintained a deep-rooted connection to reality, and his photographs explore the intricacies of black identity, reflecting the themes that made his debut novel so compelling. Through his lens, viewers are invited to contemplate and reflect on a portrait of America during the period, which rejected the mythical idea of a melting pot that authorities were attempting to push as a means of 'asserting order'.
“Untitled” (New York City), a photograph of men on a Harlem street corner in the 1940s by Ralph Ellison, the author of the 1952 landmark novel, “Invisible Man.”Credit...The Ralph and Fanny Ellison Charitable Trust
1940s, a woman is being taken into custody by policemen. They raise the unsettling question that reverberates through “Invisible Man.” In this crazy world, how can we tell what is going on?
Ellison's photographs are a valuable addition to the record. However, "Invisible Man" dives much deeper and offers a scathing examination of how the poison of racism has infiltrated American culture. This work of art is both hilarious and horrifying, effectively capturing the tragicomedy of not being recognized for one's true self due to the color of their skin. While some of Ellison's photographs are powerful and striking, they do not match the depth and brilliance of his book, which is considered one of the greatest American novels of the 20th century. If there were a photographic version of "Invisible Man," it would most likely need to be staged, hovering between naturalism and surrealism, by an artist with the same sublime gift for creating images that Ellison possessed for words.
The second section shows a more introspective Ellison, with photographs taken in the 1970s through the 90s, as he grappled with completing his second novel, Juneteenth, published after his death.
The book’s latter section features color polaroids taken in the latter decades of Ellison's life as he worked on his second novel. These images depict small details, flowers, fruit, and small ornaments, revealing Ellison’s quieter, more reflective side. It is as if he was looking inward for inspiration rather than to the streets around him that previously gave him such.
From 730 Riverside Drive in Hamilton Heights, located in the northwest corner of Harlem, he mostly took Polaroids from inside his apartment. He shared the apartment with his wife, Fanny, until he passed away in 1994. One of the photographs features a potted orchid on a windowsill, which overlooks a blurry view of the Hudson. This image strongly suggests a retreat from the turbulence of everyday life.
Fanny McConnell Ellison took this untitled portrait of her husband, Ralph Ellison, at St. Nicholas Park, New York City, 1940s.
Credit...The Ralph and Fanny Ellison Charitable Trust
It's not commonly known that Gordon Parks, a successful photographer by the mid-1940s, and Ralph Ellison, who was working on his celebrated novel "Invisible Man" (1952), were actually friends.
The two men had a shared vision of racial injustice, which inspired them to collaborate on two important projects in 1948 and 1952. Their first joint project was an essay titled "Harlem Is Nowhere," which they created for '48: The Magazine of the Year. This illustrated essay was conceived while Ellison was working on "Invisible Man" and was focused on the Lafargue Mental Hygiene Clinic - the first non-segregated psychiatric clinic in New York City. The clinic served as a case study for the social and economic conditions of the neighborhood.Parks was chosen to create the accompanying photographs, and during the winter months of 1948, the two roamed the streets of Harlem.
In 1952, they collaborated again on "A Man Becomes Invisible" for the August 25 issue of Life magazine, which promoted Ellison's newly released novel. Unfortunately, one of the two projects was lost, while the other was published only in reduced form. This book is the first publication on Parks' and Ellison's collaboration on these two projects, and it provides an in-depth look at the artists' shared vision of Black life in America, with Harlem as its nerve center.
The book was published to coincide with an exhibition of the same name that originated at The Art Institute of Chicago from May 21 to August 28, 2016.
“A Man Becomes Invisible” was the culmination of their work together, and remains an important tribute to and interpretation of Ellison’s seminal novel. Invisible Man was described in Life as a story of “the loneliness, the horror and the disillusionment of a man who has lost faith in himself and his world”; more pointedly, it is also a stark account of America’s racial divisions, and of an unnamed Black protagonist’s awakening to his condition of invisibility within the surrounding cultures of white and Black alike. The novel quickly became one of the most acclaimed—and debated—books of the twentieth century and established Ellison as a major figure in American literature. Gordon Parks, meanwhile, was among Life’s most celebrated staff photographers, best known for his poignant and humanizing photo essays. He was also the first African American hired by the magazine. The two men held in common a desire to make visible the Black experience in postwar America, and each was able to make his work accessible to the widest possible audience, both Black and white—accomplishments that brought both praise and criticism throughout their careers. Less well known, however, is that their vision of racial injustices, coupled with a shared belief in the communicative power of photography, inspired collabo- ration on two important projects, in 1948 and 1952.
By the mid-1940s, Parks had cemented his reputation as a successful photojournalist and magazine photographer, and Ellison was working on his first major novel. They were likely introduced by members of the thriving literary and artistic circles in Harlem, who sought new ways of representing Black life in America in their words and images— depictions that would dig deeper than the sociologically and economically driven views that had filled mainstream publications in the 1930s, and would instead reveal the everyday experiences of Black individuals. Ellison had a serious interest in photography. This had drawn him to Parks, who had distinguished himself professionally while working for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and Condé Nast, publisher of Vogue and Glamour magazines. Capitalizing on the growing popularity of the picture press, the two joined forces first in 1948, on the essay “Harlem Is Nowhere,” for ’48: The Magazine of the Year, and again in 1952 on “A Man Becomes Invisible” for Life. Neither project was published as originally intended; parts of the first were lost, while the second came out only as a fragment that merely hinted at the authors’ shared vision of Black life in America, with Harlem as its nerve center.
Michal Raz-Russo
Excerpt from “Visible Men,” Invisible Man: Gordon Parks and Ralph Ellison in Harlem
Ralph Ellison, New York, New York, 1947