The first African-American gallery opened inside Manhattan’s white commercial mainstream

Evidence

Van Vechten was the Harlem Renaissance’s most ubiquitous White patron, a man as curiously passionate about being around and showing off Black people as zookeepers are about being around and showing off their exotic pets. In the past few years, European artists arriving in New York had been calling on Van Vechten to take them on the “safari” of Harlem, as the tourists and tour guide more or less understood it. Now, Van Vechten gave them the tour in a book, Nigger Heaven. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 843 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: White patronage of Harlem operated through an exoticizing, zoo-like gaze — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The…, 843

Broader Connections

• White patronage of Harlem operated through an exoticizing, zoo-like gaze #complicates (0.72) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 843