James Van Der Zee ran a successful portrait studio in Harlem from the 1910s into the mid-1940s. His carefully arranged compositions—complete with choice props such as wooden furniture, vases of flowers, and painted backdrops—drew on older traditions of portraiture that suggested wealth and aristocratic elegance. In 1924, Van Der Zee was appointed official photographer of Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey (1887– 1940), founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, an international mass movement dedicated to black political and economic emancipation. Van Der Zee documented Garvey’s meetings with important leaders and recorded the parades of the African Legion, its paramilitary unit. He was frequently commissioned to portray UNIA members and their families.