author
Carl Van Vechten
1880–1964
A sharp-eyed chronicler of American culture, this writer moved from music criticism and novels into photography, leaving behind a vivid record of the artistic world around him. He is especially remembered for his close ties to the Harlem Renaissance and for championing major literary figures of his time.
7 Audiobooks
Interpreters
by Carl Van Vechten
The Merry-Go-Round
by Carl Van Vechten
The Music of Spain
by Carl Van Vechten
Music and bad manners
by Carl Van Vechten
Music after the great war, and other studies
by Carl Van Vechten
The blind bow-boy
by Carl Van Vechten
Peter Whiffle : His life and works
by Carl Van Vechten
About the author
Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1880, Carl Van Vechten built an unusually wide-ranging career as a writer, critic, and photographer. After graduating from the University of Chicago, he worked in journalism and became known as a music critic for The New York Times, bringing a strong interest in modern art, performance, and literary culture to everything he wrote.
As an author, he published novels and essays that made him a noticeable and sometimes controversial figure in American literary life. He became closely associated with the Harlem Renaissance, supporting and promoting Black artists and writers, and he also served as the literary executor of Gertrude Stein, one of his most important lifelong friends.
In later years, Van Vechten turned increasingly to photography and created a remarkable gallery of portraits of twentieth-century writers, performers, and artists. He died in New York in 1964, but his work still offers a lively window into the cultural circles that shaped modern American arts and letters.