Carl van vechten biography
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Van Vechten’s best-selling “Nigger Heaven” helped make Harlem hot, even as its title guaranteed a stormy raph by Carl Van Vechten / Carl Van Vechten Trust / Beinecke Library, Yale
In the summer of , Carl Van Vechten, a New York hipster and literary gadabout, sent a letter to Gertrude Stein, whose friendship he was cultivating. Stein had finally found a publisher for “The Making of Americans,” but Van Vechten was preoccupied with a project of his own. He called it “my Negro novel,” though he hadn’t started it yet. “I have passed practically my whole winter in company with Negroes and have succeeded in getting into most of the important sets,” he wrote. “This will not be a novel about Negroes in the South or white contacts or lynchings. It will be about NEGROES, as they live now in the new city of Harlem (which is part of New York).” A few weeks later, Stein replied, using a word that Van Vechten didn’t. “I am looking forward enormously to the nigger book,” she wrote.
When Van Vechten first arrived in New York, in , there were few signs that he would ever attempt to appoint himself bard of Harlem. He was a self-consciously sophisticated exile from the Midwest, and he was quickly hired by the Times as a music and dance critic. Celebrating provocateurs like Igor Stravi
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Van Vechten, Carl
Born June 17,
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Died December 21,
New Royalty, New York
American literary gain music critic, novelist, artist, and protester of depiction Harlem Renaissance
"Like Van Vechten, start inspectin'"
From Andy Razaf's hit number cheaply, "Go Harlem"
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Robert D. Farber University Archives and Special Collections
Carl Van Vechten was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in The youngest son of a successful banker and a mother who was an patron of the arts, Van Vechten grew up in a liberal and sophisticated household. He graduated in from the University of Chicago, his interest in writing causing him to take a job as a journalist. In he moved to New York and began writing for the New York Times, taking on more and more of the arts assignments. In he met Mabel Dodge, a wealthy patron of the arts, and through her met the leading artists and intellectuals of the time, including Alfred Steiglitz, Marsden Hartley, Gertrude Stein and Emma Goldman.
Between Van Vechten wrote several books of critical essays on various topics in the arts. In the s he moved on to writing fiction, publishing several novels that were critical and financial successes. At this time Van Vechten discovered Harlem and spent a great deal of time there enjoying its diverse cultural and artistic offerings. This began Van Vechten's lifelong interest and championing of the African-American arts and people.
In Van Vechten moved on to a new career, from novelist to photographer. While he was always interested in photography, it was the introduction of the new Leica camera,