1880-06-17

CARL VAN VECHTEN, American writer and photographer (d. 1964); It’s funny how these things work. Black pride has led to an exploration of black culture, and the Harlem Renaissance of the ‘20s, and ‘30s has been rediscovered. The renewed interest in the Harlem Renaissance has led in turn to the de-mothballing of the white man who was at the center of it all, its chief publicist in fact, Carl Van Vechten, photographer and writer, dandy and man about town. In many ways Van Vechten was the American Ronald Firbank, the early Evelyn Waugh from corn-fed Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Reading Van Vechten is not exactly like eating salted peanuts.

But his books have all the flavor of a time when drinks were called cocktails and were served, with fancy little things called canapes, in matching blue-glass shakers, trays and glasses. Start reading Van Vechten with The Blind BowBoy, in which a randy duke emblazons his stationery with the motto: “A thing of beauty is a boy forever!” You get the idea.

Most of Van Vechten’s papers are held by the Beinecke Library at Yale University. The Library of Congress acquired its collection of approximately 1,400 photographs in 1966 from Saul Mauriber.

See more images here: https://loc.gov/pictures/collection/van/