[Physician, Harlem]
Photograph
[Physician, Harlem]
From Harlem Document
1936–1940
Gelatin silver print
Image: 11 9/16 × 9 5/16 in. (29.3 × 23.6 cm)
Mount: 14 3/8 × 11 in. (36.5 × 27.9 cm)
Matted: 20 × 16 × 3/16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 × 0.4 cm)
Gift of Aaron Siskind
1969.0073.0002
Inscriptions Typed in ink on applied label on mount recto, BC: Harlem's 400 odd physicians and surgeons are a hightly com- \ petent lot. They offer the community their varried services, \ as specialists and general practioners at comparatively \ reasonable fees -- make upwards of $2,000 a year. This
Typed in ink on applied label on mount recto, BRC: Corsini
Inscribed in pencil on mount verso: Corsini \ 13 B \ Health 1
Typed in ink on applied label on mount recto, BRC: Corsini
Inscribed in pencil on mount verso: Corsini \ 13 B \ Health 1
TextFounded in 1936 in the midst of the Depression, the Photo League was a New York City–based organization dedicated to the practice of photography as an agent of social change. The League’s headquarters included space for discussion and darkrooms, and they sponsored workshops, lectures, and exhibitions. During its first year, in 1936, charter member Aaron Siskind formed a special Feature Group within the organization that, for the next four years, undertook various documentary projects around the city, focusing on subjects such as the Bowery, Park Avenue, and most famously, Harlem, then the center of African American culture in New York. The group’s Harlem project was intended for publication as a book titled Harlem Document. (That book never materialized, but Siskind published a collection of his own work from that period under the same title much later, in 1981.) The project focused on various aspects of life in the community, including recreation, as seen in Siskind’s photograph of energetic dancers in the iconic Savoy Ballroom; youth, as photographed by Richard Lyon in his portrait of a youth group and its proud leader; and health, as illustrated by Harold Corsini in his portrait of a Harlem physician.
