Comments on: Creative Americans: Portraits by Carl Van Vechten 1932-1964

Creative Americans: Portraits by Carl Van Vechten 1932-1964

ND¢ — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 12:39:55 -0800

Creative Americans: The Carl Van Vechten Photographs Collection at the Library of Congress consists of 1,395 photographs taken by American photographer Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) between 1932 and 1964. The bulk of the collection consists of portrait photographs of celebrities, including many figures from the Harlem Renaissance. Portraits include those of Tallulah Bankhead, Salvador Dali, Truman Capote, Dizzy Gillespie, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Eartha Kitt, and Joe Louis. They are all available in medium or high resolution JPEG's or uncompressed archival TIFF versions.

By: ND¢

ND¢ — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 12:41:07 -0800

Part of the previously mentioned Library of Congress's American Memory Project.

By: bardic

bardic — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 12:45:37 -0800

Van Vechten was a tremendous polymath and eccentric. He did a lot of great things, but I hesitate to call him a genius. More like an ennabler of great things like the Harlem Renaissance, and progressive to the point of absurdity, if not offensiveness ("Nigger Heaven") when it came to race. I knew he was a photographer, but it's nice to actually see his photos. Very cool stuff NDcent.

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 13:28:21 -0800

Is it me or does Dali look like Gomez Addams?

By: MrMoonPie

MrMoonPie — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 14:00:00 -0800

Thanks, ND¢. I hadn't thought about Van Vechten since I helped make a fake Van Vechten print for the cover of a book I worked on in grad school.

By: ND¢

ND¢ — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 14:20:31 -0800

I should have researched this post more. Here is an incredible site: Extravagant Crowd: Carl Van Vechten's Portraits of Women

By: ND¢

ND¢ — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 14:39:17 -0800

By: ND¢

ND¢ — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 14:41:24 -0800

By: squirrel

squirrel — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 15:11:58 -0800

Very cool. Love the TIFs. Thanks!

By: Cranberry

Cranberry — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 17:33:56 -0800

Wow ND¢! Carol Channing without wrinkles, and a Lena Horne that I failed to recognize. Interesting.

By: bardic

bardic — Sat, 18 Feb 2006 10:58:54 -0800

Zora is teh hawt.