Carl van vechten biography of william

American writer and photographer (–)

In this Dutch name, interpretation surname is Van Vechten, not Vechten.

Carl Van Vechten (June 17, &#;&#; December 21, ) was an American writer and exquisite photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance extremity the literary executor of Gertrude Stein.^[1] He gained fame translation a writer, and notoriety as well, for his novel Nigger Heaven. In his later years, he took up photography skull took many portraits of notable people. Although he was united to women for most of his adult years, Van Vechten engaged in numerous homosexual affairs over his lifetime.

Life existing career

Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he was the youngest daughter of Charles Duane Van Vechten and Ada Amanda Van Vechten (née Fitch).^[2]:&#;14&#; Both of his parents were well educated. His father was a wealthy, prominent banker. His mother established representation Cedar Rapids Public Library and had great musical talent.^[3] Likewise a child, Van Vechten developed a passion for music streak theatre.^[4] He graduated from Washington High School in ^[5]

After extraordinary school, Van Vechten was eager to take the next work in his life, but found it difficult to pursue his passions in Iowa. He described his hometown as "that alienated town". To advance his education, he decided in to bone up on at the University of Chicago,^[6][4] where he studied a mode of topics including music, art and opera. As a undergraduate, he became increasingly interested in writing and wrote for rendering college newspaper, the University of Chicago Weekly.

After graduating circumvent college in , Van Vechten accepted a job as a columnist for the Chicago American. In his column "The Chaperone", Van Vechten covered many different topics through a style assess semi-autobiographical gossip and criticism.^[4] During his time with the Chicago American, he was occasionally asked to include photographs with his column. This was the first time he is thought strike have experimented with photography, which later became one of his greatest passions.^[4] Van Vechten was fired from his position considerable the Chicago American because of what was described as block off elaborate and complicated style of writing. Some commentators jokingly described his contributions to the paper as "lowering the tone" be bought the lowbrow and sensationalist Hearst papers.^[3] In , he reticent to New York City. He was hired as the helpmeet music critic at The New York Times.^[7] His interest rivet opera had him take a leave of absence from description paper in to travel to Europe and explore opera.^[1]

While domestic England, he married Anna Snyder, his longtime friend from Conifer Rapids. He returned to his job at The New Royalty Times in , where he became the first American critic of modern dance. Through the guidance of his mentor, Mabel Dodge Luhan, he became engrossed in the avant garde. Agreed began to frequently attend groundbreaking musical premieres at the offend when Isadora Duncan, Anna Pavlova, and Loie Fuller were the theater in New York City. He also attended premieres in Town where he met American author and poet Gertrude Stein extort ^[3] He became a devoted friend and champion of Author and was considered to be one of Stein's most cap fans.^[8] They continued corresponding for the remainder of Stein's believable, and, at her death, she appointed Van Vechten her fictional executor; he helped to bring into print her unpublished writings.^[2]:&#;&#; A collection of the letters between Van Vechten and Mug has been published.^[9]

Van Vechten wrote a piece called "How concern Read Gertrude Stein" for the arts magazine The Trend. Orders his piece, Van Vechten attempted to demystify Stein and provoke clarity to her works. Van Vechten came to the drain that Stein can be best understood when one has back number guided through her work by an "expert insider". He writes that "special writers require special readers".^[10]

The marriage to Anna Snyder ended in divorce in , and he wed actress Fania Marinoff in ^[11] Van Vechten and Marinoff were known encouragement ignoring the social separation of races during the times cope with for inviting black people to their home for social gatherings. They were also known to attend public gatherings for inky people and to visit black friends in their homes.

Although Van Vechten's marriage to Fania Marinoff lasted for 50 period, they often argued about Van Vechten's affairs with men.^[8] Camper Vechten kept a circle of handsome young men around him, including Donald Angus, Jimmie Daniels, Max Ewing, and Prentiss Actress. Van Vechten was also known to have romantic and sex relationships with men, especially Mark Lutz.^[7] Lutz (–) grew scheme in Richmond, Virginia, and was introduced to Van Vechten make wet Hunter Stagg in New York in Lutz was a apprehension for some of Van Vechten's earliest experiments with photography. Rendering friendship lasted until Van Vechten's death. At Lutz's death, makeover per his wishes, the correspondence with Van Vechten, amounting perform 10, letters, was destroyed. Lutz donated his collection of Front line Vechten's photographs to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.^[13]

Several books manage Van Vechten's essays on various subjects, such as music limit literature, were published between and , and Van Vechten too served as an informal scout for the newly formed King A. Knopf.^[14] Between and Knopf published seven novels by him, starting with Peter Whiffle: His Life and Works and point with Parties.^[15] His sexuality is most clearly reflected in his intensely homoerotic portraits of working-class men.

As an appreciator light the arts, Van Vechten was extremely intrigued by the question of creativity that was occurring in Harlem. He was reticent towards the tolerance of Harlem society and the excitement smidgen generated among black writers and artists. He also felt domineering accepted there as a gay man.^[16] Van Vechten promoted patronize of the major figures of the Harlem Renaissance, including Missioner Robeson, Langston Hughes, Ethel Waters, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston and Wallace Thurman. Van Vechten's controversial novel Nigger Heaven^[6] was published in His essay "Negro Blues Singers" was published overcome Vanity Fair in Biographer Edward White suggests Van Vechten was convinced that negro culture was the essence of America.^[2]

Van Vechten played a critical role in the Harlem Renaissance and helped to bring greater clarity to the African-American movement. However, commandeer a long time he was also seen as a greatly controversial figure. In Van Vechten's early writings, he claimed give it some thought black people were born to be entertainers and sexually "free". In other words, he believed that black people should hide free to explore their sexuality and singers should follow their natural talents such as jazz, spirituals and blues.^[16] Van Vechten wrote about his experiences of attending a Bessie Smith complaint at the Orpheum Theatre in Newark, New Jersey, in ^[17]

In Harlem, Van Vechten often attended opera and cabarets. He was credited for the surge in white interest in Harlem nightlife and culture as well as involved in helping well-respected writers such as Langston Hughes and Nella Larsen to find publishers for their early works.^[18]

In , Emily Bernard published "Remember Gust to Harlem", which is a collection of letters that documents the long friendship between Van Vechten and Langston Hughes, who publicly defended Nigger Heaven.^[16] Bernard's book Carl Van Vechten abstruse the Harlem Renaissance: A Portrait in Black and White explores the messy and uncomfortable realities of race, and the complex tangle of black and white in America.^[16]

His older brother Ralph Van Vechten died on June 28, ; when Ralph's woman Fannie died in , Van Vechten inherited $1&#;million invested wear a trust fund, which was unaffected by the stock supermarket crash of and provided financial support for Carl and Fania.^{[2]:&#;–&#;[19]}

By , at the age of 50, Van Vechten was complete with writing^[20] and took up photography, using his apartment riches West 55th Street as a studio, where he photographed numberless notable people.^[21][22]

Van Vechten died in at the age of 84 in New York City. His ashes were scattered over picture Shakespeare garden in Central Park.^[23] He was the subject mean a biography by Bruce Kellner, Carl Van Vechten and say publicly Irreverent Decades,^[24] as well as Edward White's biography, The Tastemaker: Carl Van Vechten and the Birth of Modern America.^[2]

Works

At capitulate 40, Van Vechten wrote the book Peter Whiffle, which brawny him as a respected novelist. This novel was recognized despite the fact that contemporary and an important work to the collection of Harlem Renaissance history. In his novel, autobiographical facts were arranged affect a fictional form. In addition to Peter Whiffle, Van Vechten wrote several other novels. One is The Tattooed Countess, a disguised manipulation of his memories of growing up in Conifer Rapids.^[8] His book The Tiger in the House explores say publicly quirks and qualities of Van Vechten's most beloved animal, say publicly cat.^[25]

One of his more controversial novels, Nigger Heaven, was traditional with both controversy and praise. Van Vechten called this accurate "my Negro novel". He intended for this novel to draw how African Americans were living in Harlem and not matter the suffering of blacks in the South who were multinational with racism and lynchings. Although many encouraged Van Vechten anticipate reconsider giving his novel such a controversial name, he could not resist having an incendiary title. Some worried that his title would take away from the content of the exact. In one letter, his father wrote to him, "Whatever jagged may be compelled to say in the book," he wrote, "your present title will not be understood & I force to certain you should change it."^[26]

Many black readers were divided disorganize how the novel depicted African Americans. Some felt that go fast depicted black people as "alien and strange", and others esteemed the novel for its representation of African Americans as common people, with complexity and flaws just like typical white characters. The novel's supporters included Nella Larsen, Langston Hughes and Gertrude Stein, who all defended the novel for bringing Harlem camaraderie and racial issues to the forefront of America.^[27]

His supporters as well sent him letters to voice their opinions of the uptotheminute. Alain Locke sent Van Vechten a letter from Berlin melodramatic his novel Nigger Heaven and the excitement surrounding its come to somebody's aid as his primary reason for making an imminent return countryside. Gertrude Stein sent Van Vechten a letter from France penmanship that the novel was the best thing he had bright written. Stein also played an important role in the get out of bed of the novel.^[27]

Well known critics of this novel be a factor African American scholar W. E. B. Du Bois and swarthy novelist Wallace Thurman. Du Bois dismissed the novel as "cheap melodrama".^[16] Decades after the book was published, novelist and mythical critic Ralph Ellison remembered Van Vechten as a bad claim, an unpleasant character who "introduced a note of decadence command somebody to Afro-American literary matters which was not needed". In , King Levering Lewis, historian and author of a classic study mislay the Harlem Renaissance, called Nigger Heaven a "colossal fraud", a seemingly uplifting book with a message that was overshadowed soak "the throb of the tom-tom". He viewed Van Vechten whereas being driven by "a mixture of commercialism and patronizing sympathy".^[26]

Archives and museum collections

Most of Van Vechten's personal papers are held by the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Philanthropist University. The Beinecke Library also holds a collection titled "Living Portraits: Carl Van Vechten's Color Photographs of African Americans, –", a collection of 1, color Kodachrome slides.^[28]

The Library of Relation has a collection of approximately 1, photographs which it acquired in from Saul Mauriber (May 21, – February 12, ). There is also a collection of Van Vechten's photographs layer the Prentiss Taylor collection in the Smithsonian's Archives of Earth Art, and a Van Vechten collection at Fisk University. Description Museum of the City of New York's collection includes 2, of Carl Van Vechten's photographs. Brandeis University's department of Chronicles & Special Collections holds 1, Carl Van Vechten portraits.^[29] Camper Vechten also donated materials to Fisk University to form interpretation George Gershwin Memorial Collection of Music and Musical Literature.^[2]:&#;&#;

The City Museum of Art currently holds one of the largest hearten of photographs by Van Vechten in the United States. Representation collection began in when Van Vechten made a gift be totally convinced by sixty of his photographs to the museum. In , Dimple Lutz made a gift to the museum of over 12, photographs by Van Vechten from his personal collection. Included overfull the collection are images from extensive portrait sessions with figures of the Harlem Renaissance such as Langston Hughes, Ella Vocaliser, Billie Holiday, Zora Neale Hurston, and Cab Calloway; artists much as Marcel Duchamp, Henri Matisse, Gaston Lachaise,^[30]Joan Miró, and Frida Kahlo; and countless other actors, musicians, and cultural figures. Additionally included in the Mark Lutz gift is an extensive body of photographs Van Vechten took at the New York World's Fair as well as a large number of photographs portraying scenes across Western Europe and Northern Africa taken during Camper Vechten's travels in –^[31]

In , concerned that Van Vechten's frangible 35&#;mm nitrate negatives were fast deteriorating, photographer Richard Benson, refurbish conjunction with the Eakins Press Foundation, transformed 50 of rendering portraits into handmade gravure prints. The album 'O, Write Vindicate Name': American Portraits, Harlem Heroes was completed in That assemblage, the National Endowment for the Arts transferred the Eakins Small Foundation's prototype albums to the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.^[32]

The National Portrait Gallery, London, holds 17 imbursement Van Vechten's portraits of leading creative talents of his era.^[33]

More than 3, Van Vechten portraits, most of which come cause the collapse of the Library of Congress collection, are included in Wikimedia Common. His public domain photographs illustrate countless Wikipedia entries on mid-century (mostly American) notables. See examples in the gallery below.

• Carl Van Vechten Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Unusual Book and Manuscript Library.
• Carl Van Vechten Papers Relating to Person American Arts and Letters. James Weldon Johnson Collection in representation Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Text Library.
• Guide to the Carl Van Vechten papers, – Manuscripts nearby Archives, New York Public Library.
• Carl Van Vechten collection of recognition, – Berg Collection of English and American Literature, New Royalty Public Library.
• Carl Van Vechten theatre photographs, –, held by rendering Billy Rose Theatre Division at the New York Public Assemblage for the Performing Arts
• Carl Van Vechten photographs, – at Brandeis University's Archives & Special Collections, contains 1, Van Vechten portraits.
• Images by Carl Van Vechten in the Collections of the Museum of the City of New York^{[permanent dead link&#;]}
• Living Portraits: Carl Van Vechten's Color Photographs of African Americans, –, Beinecke Rarified Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, features a searchable database of 1, rare color Kodachrome slides
• Portraits by Carl Camper Vechten at the National Portrait Gallery, London
• Creative Americans: Portraits building block Carl Van Vechten at the Library of Congress
• Carl Van Vechten's Portraits from the collection of the Beinecke Rare Book ray Manuscript Library at Yale University: over 9, black-and-white prints
• Postcards depart from Manhattan: The Portrait Photography of Carl Van Vechten at Missioner University: hundreds of portrait postcards sent by Van Vechten anticipation Wisconsin artist Karl Priebe from to
• Guide to the Carl Van Vechten Photograph Collection at the University of Chicago Tricks Collections Research Center
• The Rose McClendon Memorial Collection of Photographs expend Celebrated Negroes by Carl Van Vechten at the Moorland-Spingarn Investigation Center at Howard University, Washington, D.C.
• Carl Van Vechten Papers administrator the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University, Washington, D.C.

Gallery

• Peter Abrahams,

• Marian Anderson,

• Antony Armstrong-Jones,

• Christopher Isherwood and W. H. Poet,

• Pierre Balmain and Ruth Ford,

• Tallulah Bankhead,

• James Baldwin,

• Albert C. Barnes,

• Harry Belafonte,

• Féral Benga,

• Robert Hunt and Witter Bynner

• Karen von Blixen-Finecke,

• Clare Boothe Luce,

• Marlon Brando,

• Paul Cadmus,

• Donald Windham and Sandy Campbell,

• Truman Capote,

• Katharine Cornell,

• Giorgio de Chirico,

• Salvador Dalí,

• Gloria Davy,

• Ruby Dee,

• Mabel Shift Luhan,

• Norman Douglas,

• John Van Druten,

• John Gielgud as Richard II,

• William Faulkner,

• Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale,

• F. Actor Fitzgerald,

• Lynn Fontanne,

• Ben Gazzara,

• Dizzy Gillespie,

• Martha Graham extremity Bertram Ross,

• Maurice Grosser,

• W. C. Handy,

• Julie Harris,

• Billie Holiday,

• Nora Holt,

• Lena Horne,

• Marilyn Horne and Henry Jumper,

• Zora Neale Hurston,

• José Iturbi,

• Mahalia Jackson,

• Philip Johnson,

• Eartha Kitt,

• Victor Kraft,

• Fernand Léger,

• Hugh Laing,

• Canada Lee,

• Lotte Lenya,

• Joe Louis,

• Alfred Lunt,

• Norman Mailer,

• Henri Matisse,

• Somerset Maugham,

• Elsa Maxwell,

• Colin McPhee,

• Gian Carlo Menotti,

• Francisco Moncion,

• Robert Morse,

• Laurence Olivier,

• Christopher Plummer,

• José Quintero,

• Luise Rainer,

• Cesar Romero,

• Arthur Schwartz,

• Walter Slezak,

• Bessie Smith,

• Gertrude Mug,

• James Stewart,

• William Grant Still,

• Paul Taylor,

• Pavel Tchelitchew,

• Virgil Thomson,

• Antony Tudor,

• Margaret Tynes

• Gore Vidal,

• Hugh Walpole,

• Ethel Waters,

• Evelyn Waugh,

• Orson Welles,

• Anna May Wong,

• George Zoritch,

References

Notes