Extravagant Crowd: Carl Van Vechten's Portraits of Women

by Carl van Vechten, Bruce Kellner, Nancy Kuhl

Carl Van Vechten, one of the most distinctive photographic portraitists of the 20th century captured the visages of the famous and the talented. This catalogue, issued to celebrate the 2003 exhibition, focuses on his photographs of extraordinary women in the arts. Over 80 women are pictured each accompanied by an original essay. From Mary Martin to Carson McCullers, from Billie Holiday to Pearl Bailey, many of the greatest American artists are shown in the prime of their careers.

Genres: Photography

190 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2003

About the author

Carl van Vechten (B.A., University of Chicago, 1903) was a photographer, music-dance critic, novelist, and patron of the Harlem Renaissance who served as literary executor for Gertrude Stein.

Van Vechten was among the most influential literary figures of the 1910s and 1920s. He began his career in journalism as a reporter, then in 1906 joined The New York Times as assistant music critic and later worked as its Paris correspondent. His early reviews are collected in Interpreters and Interpretations (1917 and 1920) and Excavations: A Book of Advocacies (1926). His first novel, Peter Whiffle (1922), a first-person account of the salon and bohemian culture of New York and Paris and clearly drawn from Van Vechten's own experiences, and was immensely popular. His most controversial work of fiction is Nigger Heaven (1926), notable for its depiction of black life in Harlem in the 1920s and its sympathetic treatment of the newly emerging black culture.

In the 1930s, Van Vechten turned from fiction to photography. His photographs are in collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and elsewhere. An important literary patron, he established the James Weldon Johnson Collection of Negro Arts and Letters at Yale.

Reviews

[Sketchbook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lois Moran captured Fitzgerald's heart (and, maybe, other parts too), inspiring Rosemary in Tender is the Night. The young actress is among the dozens of "extravagant" women lensed by CVV after he stopped novel writing in the early 30s and devoted his life to photography. His subjects are always dramatically posed-lit against atmospheric rolls of decorative "wall paper" sheets in his studio. CVV, who photographed every lively member of Arts & Letters around NYC, fr Brando to Albee, is repped elsewhere by his male erotica. His studio was open all-night.

This handsomely produced volume, w bios of the personalities, can be seen by Googling its title, which is a nifty extra. Want to see a photo of "Bryher," daughter of one of the UKs richest and Signif Other of "H.D." -- Well, here she is. Her face is strictly for radio, but she was a wonderful character who married the writer-editor Robert McAlmon to get away fr daddy, Sir John Ellerman. (See his : Being Geniuses Together).

Stage designer Aline Bernstein met Thomas Wolfe, 25, on a liner returning from Europe and they began a turbulent affair. She was 20 years older, married w 2 tots. Aline made sure he got his first novel written. A strong, vigorous woman, she weathered his crushing anti-sem slurs when the unhappy prince was drunk. (There's a movie--) Both Aline and CVV are characters in Wolfe novels.

Tallulah. CVV met her at the Algonquin Hotel when she was in her teens and had just arrived fr Alabama. A few years later they cracked open several bottles in London where she was a Star. At CVVs 83rd bday party she interrupted Mabel Mercer to sing Bye, Bye Blackbird. She looks like a ravenous orchid in his 30s photo.

And then CVVs wife (what do we know of her?), Fania Marinoff. A Russian immigrant, she arrived here as a child, the youngest of 13, hoping for luck in the New World. Almost homeless she found Life onstage. An exotic, emotional firefly who acted w the Theatre Guild, and, much later, w Tallu. She was married to CVV for 50 years and appreciated what few do : to keep a relationship "alive," you keep one eye closed and don't stop acting.

CVV died in 1964. I can't think of any interesting personalities since then who might deserve or win his lens. Today it's all Instant Media Rabble.

[Anna Leahy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous book. It’s an art book, but the written parts are great too. I learned and thought a lot.