BIOGRAPHY
A photographer and patron of the arts, Carl Van Vechten began his career as a music and theater critic, and as a novelist of light fiction. After graduating from the University of Chicago in 1906, he joined the staff of the New York Times as an assistant music critic and soon gained prominence within the worlds of music, theater, and the performing arts. In 1932, Van Vechten gave up these activities and became a full-time amateur photographer. As a well-connected patron of the arts and letters, Van Vecthen gave African American writers their first break by introducing them and their work to key individuals in the white-operated world of publishing. He became an invaluable asset in this regard to authors such as Langston Hughes, Wallace Thurman, and Zora Neale Hurston. He also assisted the African American artist Aaron Douglas in securing commissions of graphic designs for various magazines and authored books. Later in life, Douglas publicly acknowledged Van Vechten’s importance in getting the artist started in his career as an artist.
In the area of photography, Van Vechten is best known for his public portraits of important Caucasian and African American artists, writers, musicians, theatrical performers, and other noteworthy cultural personalities of the day (for instance, Portrait of Zora Neale Hurston, 1938). These portraits of national and international celebrities made use of an array of distinctive backdrops and selected studio props. They tackled identity formation, exploited role-playing, and visually documented, in the most complimentary way possible, a variety of personalities who contributed to America’s cultural richness in the early 20th century. His foray into photographing African American celebrities was augmented by his reputation as an expert on Harlem nightlife. Referring to himself as ‘an obstinate cataloguer’, Van Vechten used his camera to augment his passionate obsessions with documenting and collecting people as objects. His portrait photographs came to public attention in 1935 when they were exhibited at the Second International Leica Exhibition of Photography in New York amid the works of other American photographers. Van Vechten was no stranger to the circle of professional photographers of his day, including Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Man Ray. Although he closely studied the working methods of these photographers and received professional advice from them, Van Vechten chose to remain an amateur.
Over a span of more than three decades, Van Vechten produced thousands of photographs, most of them in black and white. Although he was no innovator in either the conceptual or stylistic aspects of photography—indeed, the quality of his works is uneven—one of his lasting legacies has been his relentless passion in photographing, and therefore in recording and preserving, important cultural and artistic personalities from 1932 until his death in 1964. In addition to these very familiar public images he also secretly produced many clandestine photographs of interracial male nudes in homoerotically suggestive and campy poses. These images constituted part of his utopic vision of fostering racial harmony, and were never exhibited publicly during his lifetime.
A photographer and patron of the arts, Carl Van Vechten began his career as a music and theater critic, and as a novelist of light fiction. After graduating from the University of Chicago in 1906, he joined the staff of the New York Times as an assistant music critic and soon gained prominence within the worlds of music, theater, and the performing arts. In 1932, Van Vechten gave up these activities and became a full-time amateur photographer. As a well-connected patron of the arts and letters, Van Vecthen gave African American writers their first break by introducing them and their work to key individuals in the white-operated world of publishing. He became an invaluable asset in this regard to authors such as Langston Hughes, Wallace Thurman, and Zora Neale Hurston. He also assisted the African American artist Aaron Douglas in securing commissions of graphic designs for various magazines and authored books. Later in life, Douglas publicly acknowledged Van Vechten’s importance in getting the artist started in his career as an artist.
In the area of photography, Van Vechten is best known for his public portraits of important Caucasian and African American artists, writers, musicians, theatrical performers, and other noteworthy cultural personalities of the day (for instance, Portrait of Zora Neale Hurston, 1938). These portraits of national and international celebrities made use of an array of distinctive backdrops and selected studio props. They tackled identity formation, exploited role-playing, and visually documented, in the most complimentary way possible, a variety of personalities who contributed to America’s cultural richness in the early 20th century. His foray into photographing African American celebrities was augmented by his reputation as an expert on Harlem nightlife. Referring to himself as ‘an obstinate cataloguer’, Van Vechten used his camera to augment his passionate obsessions with documenting and collecting people as objects. His portrait photographs came to public attention in 1935 when they were exhibited at the Second International Leica Exhibition of Photography in New York amid the works of other American photographers. Van Vechten was no stranger to the circle of professional photographers of his day, including Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Man Ray. Although he closely studied the working methods of these photographers and received professional advice from them, Van Vechten chose to remain an amateur.
Over a span of more than three decades, Van Vechten produced thousands of photographs, most of them in black and white. Although he was no innovator in either the conceptual or stylistic aspects of photography—indeed, the quality of his works is uneven—one of his lasting legacies has been his relentless passion in photographing, and therefore in recording and preserving, important cultural and artistic personalities from 1932 until his death in 1964. In addition to these very familiar public images he also secretly produced many clandestine photographs of interracial male nudes in homoerotically suggestive and campy poses. These images constituted part of his utopic vision of fostering racial harmony, and were never exhibited publicly during his lifetime.
REFERENCES
James Smalls. "Van Vechten, Carl." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. <http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T2229491>.
Artwork behind title: Carl Van Vechten's Alvin Ailey (detail)
James Smalls. "Van Vechten, Carl." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. <http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T2229491>.
Artwork behind title: Carl Van Vechten's Alvin Ailey (detail)
