THE CANON: CARL VAN VECHTEN

Carl Van Vechten was part of the dowtown art scene, but it appears that his camera was very well attracted to the uptown crowd and he, apparently, was most welcome.  Again, I must invoke Rodney’s film BROTHER TO BROTHER. My hopes for The Dark Tower StoryTelling Guild are that it winds its way toward the chaos, experimentation and avid production that took place in Harlem some eighty years ago. Please don’t mistake this for nostalgia so much as restlessness. Places and Spaces must generate an cohesion of their own, or they cease to be the containers for big spirits and creative gestures. By investigating  the salons of this era and the players involved, I hope to find the recipes for alchemy much needed in our current times.

This is a photo of A’Lelia Walker’s brownstone on Edgecombe Avenue in Harlem.  Taken by Van Vechten in the late forties. There is an amazing collection of Kodachrome portraits and documentary photos by Carl Van Vecten taken mostly in the fifties on this webstite. I am completely beguiled by the eccentric form, candid intimacy, and delicious texture of thhis images. Below are jsut a few that have me thinking…

Here are a few from the period that this site explores – but followng are completely irresistable images from the fifties.

This is Joyce Bryant modeling a Zelda gown. This pose is my favorite, because she is in fact, not posing, just resting.

This woman's name is Dorothy Taylor. I love the precision of her hair and dress, and of course I am so intrigued by the echos of Keita and Sidibé in Van Vechten's back grounds.

Beguiling Billie Holiday hiding behind a rose instead of a gardenia. Eventually Van Vechten coaxes her toward his lens. But this image is very tender, I think. Kodachrome!!!!!

James Baldwin posing in front of an American Airlines poster. (1955) I could write an entire treatise about Van Vechten backdrops but I hope someone already has. I'll be searching...

Alvin Ailey, 1955. This image- the pose - is banannas! I love it so.

Dizzy Gillespie. 1955. Many of These Kodachromes from Van Vechten look like head shots - or promotional shots - lots of actors in their stage costumes and stuff like that. I wonder if this was aimed at being an album cover, or a one sheet....