Creative Americans: Portraits by Carl Van Vechten, 1932-1964

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Go directly to the collection, Creative Americans: Portraits by Carl Van Vechten, 1932-1964, in American Memory, or view a Summary of Resources related to the collection.

Creative Americans: Portraits by Van Vechten, 1932-1964 includes over one thousand portraits of actors, dancers, writers, painters, and other creative individuals, as well as a few pictures of landscapes and Americana. A writer, reporter, and critic in New York City, Carl Van Vechten photographed many famous people, though the majority of his portraits are of lesser-known individuals. Through this collection, students can study various social, cultural, and artistic movements that generated in the first decades of the 1900s and developed throughout the century. With some historical context, students can see how these movements were made possible by the creation of loci of culture and creativity in cities such as Chicago and New York, and how this creation was brought about, in part, by the migration of African Americans from the South to northern cities in the first two decades of the twentieth century.

1) Modernism

In the 1920s, the urban middle class broke with traditional values by embracing a materialism and consumerism afforded by a rejuvenated economy and fuelled by mass media and advertising. Similar change was reflected in the arts in the modernist movement, in which painters, sculptors, dancers, and musicians broke with traditional subject matter, values, and styles. This collection provides an introduction to important modernists and allows students to witness for themselves some of the fundamental characteristics of this movement.

Having its colonial roots across the Atlantic, America long took its cues from Europe, considered the authority on culture, ideas, and the arts. At the close of the first World War, many American artists, doubting America's ability to make any substantial cultural contribution, sought a richer cultural atmosphere in Europe. A decade later, many of these expatriates returned and reflected European influences in modern works. Students can see the role of this international exchange for themselves in Van Vechten's many portraits of foreign artists such as Salvador Dali, Marc Chagall, Giorgio de Chirico, Joan Miro, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Henri Matisse. Search these artists' names to locate their portraits.

Portrait of Diego Rivera, 1932.

Portrait of Gertrude Stein, with American flag as backdrop, 1935.

Students can browse the lists of Artists, Authors, Photographers, Poets, and Sculptors, in the Occupational Index for portraits of other champions of modernism, including Americans such as Georgia O'Keefe, Alexander Calder, and Gertrude Stein. Students may also get a feel for the importance of New York city as a cultural center in the early twentieth century and as the capital of modernism in America, by appreciating that Van Vechten's location there made these many portraits possible. How many of Van Vechten's photographs were taken in New York? Where else do his pictures come from? Students may learn more about the changes in modernism through time and the different forms it took within various disciplines by researching a few of the artists featured in this collection.

• What can you find out about Gertrude Stein to help you understand the meaning of Van Vechten's use of an American flag in his portrait of this famous Modernist? Is it ironic or sincere?

2) Traditionalism and Americana

The inter-war decades also saw a simultaneous revival of traditionalism, expressed in nostalgia for a past quickly being eclipsed by the new technologies and values of modern America. While modernists were fleeing America for a more soulful Europe, traditionalists were identifying and embracing the "strictly American" in historical landmarks, regional traditions, vernacular architecture, and folk art. Students can view Van Vechten's photographs listed in the Subject Index under headings from Antiques, Architectural elements, Barns, Fences, and Fountains, to Piers and Wharves, Windmills, Yard ornaments, and United States, and determine whether they reflect this modern incarnation of traditionalism.

Lawn dog, Sudbury, Massachusetts, 1936.

What do these images have in common? What do they suggest about Van Vechten's interests? How do they affect the way you view the portraits in this collection? What do the portraits have in common with these other pictures?

3) African-American Leadership and Civil Rights

At the turn of twentieth century, many African Americans migrated to northern cities such as Chicago and New York to escape the racial prejudice that predominated in the South, depriving them of political power despite the guarantees of the Fifteenth Amendment. Even in the North, however, prejudice confined them to the lowest-paying jobs and poor housing conditions. Much remained to be done to establish racial equality, and many individuals would rise to the occasion as Civil Rights leaders throughout the century. One of the first of these leaders was W.E.B Du Bois, who established the NAACP in order to secure African Americans' constitutional rights through the courts. Students can refer to the collection's Occupational Index for other African-American Leaders and search American Memory and the Web for more information about these and other leaders, such as Booker T. Washington. Some questions that students might want to consider include the following:

Portrait of Dr. W. E. B. DuBois.

• In what ways did each leader make inroads toward equality for African Americans?
• How many different methods for achieving equality can you identify?
• Are some of these methods in tension with each other? How?
• Which methods seem the best? Why?
• Why are these individuals considered leaders?

Portrait of Billie Holiday.

One form of prejudice against African Americans has been their exclusion from the professional world. With this background, students can appreciate the significance of the increased participation and success of African Americans in the Performing Arts, documented in this collection. In addition to the more celebrated African-American performing artists including Pearl Bailey, Marian Anderson, Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Bessie Smith, Cab Calloway, Sammy Davis Jr., Paul Robeson, and Bill Robinson, students can browse the Subject Index for countless portraits of lesser-known performers. Ask your students to include these individuals in their consideration of African-American leadership as outlined above and answer the following questions:

How do the Performing Arts affect social conditions? What is the relationship between social and political equality? Why do you think African Americans were able to make inroads in this profession? In what other professional fields were African Americans earliest able to participate? You may also want to refer students to "Baseball, the Color Line, and Jackie Robinson, 1860s-1960s" and "The Play that Electrified Harlem" for an article about the Federal Theater Project's "Negro Unit."

Portrait of Henry Armstrong, 1937.

4) Performing Arts

The majority of the collection's photographs were taken of actors, actresses, and dancers, often captured in costume, on stage, and in character. By browsing these portraits, taken from the early thirties to the early sixties, students may get a feel for what the performing arts were like during these decades.

Portrait of Martha Graham and Bertram Ross, faces touching, in "Visionary recital", 1961.

The Occupational Index sites three dancers, but there are countless others to be found by browsing the Subject Index. Included among these is tap dancer, Bill Robinson, and Martha Graham, one of the most famous innovators of modern American dance. Have students search Graham, examine these and other photographs of modern dancers, and write a paragraph explaining what inferences they can make about modern dance based on the appearance of these dancers' movements, costumes, and makeup. It may be easier for students to glean meaning from these images by comparing them to images of classical nineteenth century ballet, the traditions of which modern dance eschewed.

Portrait of Wilbur McCormack, in Boxing Dance, 1938.

By examining photographs of actors and actresses, and by comparing them to contemporary images, students may draw inferences about film, drama, and the performing arts community in the first half of the twentieth century. As with dancers, students will want to use both the Occupational Index and the Subject Index to locate these images. Some possible questions to use in analysis include the following:

Portrait of Ram Gopal, 1938.

Portrait of Julie Harris, as Sally Bowles in I Am a Camera, 1952.

• How are the costumes, clothing, makeup, and set design in these pictures different from those of drama and movies today? What has remained the same?
• What do you think these portraits were used for? Who do you think wanted these pictures taken, Van Vecthen or his subjects? What might a performer want her portrait to look like?
• Where do you see pictures and portraits of performers today? Do they remind you of the portraits in this collection? How would you account for the similarities and differences?
• Some portraits' captions include performance titles. What can you find out about these performances by searching their titles on the web? (Other titles may be identified by searching names of film stars from the collection, such as Jimmy Stewart, Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Harry Belafonte, and Orson Welles).
• How many of these titles belong to plays? How many are movies? Who wrote them? Who starred in them? What are they about? Which ones were popular?
• What does this suggest about the kinds of subjects and themes that audiences and producers were interested in during the Thirties, Forties, Fifties, and Sixties?

5) Literature in the Twenties: the "Lost Generation"

Portrait of William Faulkner, 1954.

The 1920s was a period of exceptional productivity in American literature. Students can see this reflected in Van Vechten's many portraits of writers listed under Authors, Playwrights, and Poets, in the Occupational Index. Many of these writers expressed their generation's disillusionment with America's ideals of freedom and democracy precipitated by its experience of World War I. Scornful of America's materialistic culture and more at home in Europe than in the states, these writers of the twenties were dubbed the "Lost Generation". Students can find portraits of some of the greatest writers of this period in this collection, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill, and Edna St. Vincent Millay. You may also find a lesson idea on Sinclair Lewis's Main Street in the Collection Connection for The South Texas Border.

• Do Van Vechten's portraits of these writers reflect their status and attitudes as members of the Lost Generation?

6) Jazz and the Blues

While in the visual and literary arts modernism found its inspiration in Europe, the world looked to America for the modernist expression in music. The innovation and breaks from tradition that characterized modern visual and literary art were expressed musically in jazz. Created by African-American musicians in the South, jazz became more popular in the 1920s as African Americans migrated north to cities such as Chicago, and New York, which became the jazz capitals of the country in the 1920s and 1930s, respectively. The centrality of New York city to the jazz movement is reflected in Van Vechten's many photographs of jazz musicians. Students can find portraits of jazz greats, Dave Brubeck, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and others under Musicians and Singers in the Occupational Index. By researching a few of these and other artists, students may learn about the development of jazz in time and place.

Portrait of Dizzy Gillespie, 1955.

Portrait of George Gershwin, 1937.

Refer students to the American Memory collection, The William P. Gottlieb Collection for many more portraits of jazz artists by a different photographer. Here they will also find helpful articles and Special Presentations about this musical form and its artists. Students may also enjoy comparing Gottlieb's portraits of musicians with those of Van Vecthen. Finally, by searching their names in this collection, students may find portraits of George Gershwin, George M. Cohan, and Leonard Bernstein, whose classical works were influenced by jazz. American Memory's The Leonard Bernstein Collection will be invaluable to those wanting to learn more about this individual.

Like jazz, the blues also originated with African Americans in the South and grew in popularity as its musicians migrated North in the 1920s. Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, and W.C. Handy are well-known Blues artists that are featured in this collection. Students can sample recordings of early Blues songs in the American Memory collection, Southern Mosaic by referring to the Subject Index. The American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment, 1870-1920 can be used to learn more about vaudevilles in which both Smith and Waters began their careers.

Portrait of Bessie Smith holding Feathers, 1937.

7) Harlem Renaissance

Like other writers of the "Lost Generation," African-American writers in the twenties also rebelled against the mainstream culture. However, their rebellion was a rejection of pressures to adopt white culture and an affirmation of pride in their own heritage. This movement, known as the Harlem Renaissance, was led by a group of writers who were living in the ghetto of Harlem, including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Countee Cullen, whose portraits can be found by searching their names in this collection. Carl Van Vechten made his own contribution to this movement with his novel, Nigger Heaven, as referenced in Van Vechten's Biography. Challenge students to find portraits that express the ideals of this movement and to explain how they do so.

Portrait of Zora Neale Hurston, 1938.

The collection also includes portraits of African-American writers, Richard Wright and James Baldwin, who worked in New York City in the late thirties and forties. Like many of their contemporaries, both authors lived abroad for parts of their lives. By researching these individuals, students may discover what motivated each man to move to France as well as how he contributed to the tradition of literature by African-American writers.