Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) was a starstruck Midwesterner who led a colorful life, a social butterfly who established himself as a music and theater critic before enjoying success as a novelist in the 1920s.
Van Vechten became very interested in promoting black artists and writers. He was an avid collector of ephemera and books pertaining to black arts and letters and a frequent visitor to Harlem. These experiences provided the inspiration for his controversial novel, Nigger Heaven, which was published in 1926. In the future, he would photograph many of the creative people he met in Harlem. When the Leica revolutionized photography in the early 1930s, the amateur shutterbug embraced the rapid-fire 35mm camera and reinvented himself as a celebrity portraitist. Keith Davis discusses Van Vechten's evocative work in crisp, distinctive prose that is the perfect complement to the artist's dynamic black-and-white images. Gertrude Stein, Bessie Smith, George Gershwin, Frida Kahlo, and Paul Robeson are among the personalities who paraded through his makeshift apartment studio.
No comments:
Post a Comment