His earliest work includes portraits of Sherwood Anderson, Tallulah Bankhead, Gertrude Stein (Fig. It wasn’t until 1932 that Van Vechten (reportedly at the suggestion of Mexican painter and muralist Miguel Covarrubias) bought a Leica and focused on the world he knew so well. Portrait of Gertrude Stein, with American flag as backdrop, 1935.įig. Knopf issued his first novel, Peter Whiffle: His Life and Works.įig. In 1915 he published his first collection of critical essays in 1922 Alfred A. Within a couple years, he added dance and theater criticism to his portfolio (the latter as a staffer at the New York Press). After moving to New York in 1906, he was hired by the New York Times and soon named assistant to the paper’s music critic. Van Vechten began his career as a journalist, filing crime stories and light society pieces for the Chicago American. Portrait of Canada Lee, in Native Son, 1941. Portrait of Carl Van Vechten (self-portrait), 1934.įig.

As Carl Van Vechten: Man about Town-an exhibition on view at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art-suggests, it seemed no one of note escaped his attention.įig. He shot a range of individuals, from established talents-Ethel Barrymore, Theodore Dreiser-to rising stars such as Aaron Copland and Orson Welles (Fig. Arguably less well known today is writer and critic Carl Van Vechten, a son of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who emerged as something of a celebrity photographer in the New York City of the 1920s (Fig. The roster of photographers whose portraits comprise a pantheon of the twentieth century’s leading artists and intellects includes Yousuf Karsh, Arnold Newman, George Hurrell, Cecil Beaton, and Philippe Halsman. By the time Henry Luce’s Life landed on coffee tables in 1936, the celebrity image was a staple of our visual culture. Beginning in 1910, Alfred Stieglitz turned his lens on his own circle-Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and Arthur Dove, among others. Years before he chronicled the carnage of the Civil War, Mathew Brady was shooting the likes of Thomas Cole, John James Audubon, and Daniel Webster. Long before celebrity was quite what it is today, capturing the faces of the accomplished- whether for the private enjoyment of the sitter, for public exhibition, or as illustrations for newspapers and, later, magazines- has been central to photographic practice. All objects illustrated are in the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, Prints and Photographs Division, Van Vechten Collection.įig. Except as noted, the images illustrated are from Van Vechten’s 8-by- 10-inch negatives (scanned and digitally reversed). Portrait of Cab Calloway by Carl Van Vechten (1880–1964), c.

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