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Smithsonian American Art Museum
Carl Van Vechten (1880--1964) began making portraits in 1932. Over three decades he photographed many of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance, whose accomplishments dazzled contemporary audiences and transformed American culture in the mid-twentieth century.
Van Vechten wanted to capture the breadth of American culture and was proud of the scope of his representation of African Americans within it. In 1942, in an article for the National Association of Colored People's journal, The Crisis, he wrote, "I have made myself during the past ten years, perhaps the largest group of photographs of notable Negro personalities ever made by one man." Carl Van Vechten photographed visual artists, poets and writers, musicians and singers, film and theatre actors, boxers, ball players, patrons, attorneys, philosophers, dancers, and many others. His studio was a crossroads for persons of accomplishment, and his portraiture shaped a unique, extensive, and above all inclusive catalog of the decades in which he lived and worked.
The portraits in this exhibition are drawn from two unique portfolios submitted to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) by the Eakins Press Foundation, New York.
Harlem Heroes: Photographs by Carl Van Vechten is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The exhibition is presented in celebration of the 2016 Grand Opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. |