Carl Van Vechten
American, 1880 - 1964
BiographyCarl Van Vechten was a renowned portrait photographer and writer.
Born in 1880 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Carl reportedly began taking photographs at age 15 with a box camera, but officially began his career in photography at age 52.
Van Vechten became a music critic and Parisian correspondent for The New York Times, served as a crime reporter for Hearst Publications, and by age 40 started writing novels, most of which covered life in the 1920s.
Carl's friends included famous names such as Gertrude Stein, Paul Robeson, and Eugene O'Neil, and captured thousands of subjects, including Joe Louis, Salvador Dali, and William Faulkner.
In 1947, Carl established a memorial fund in honor of author and civil rights activist James Weldon Johnson, which culminated into a named collection of photographs and letters of the "Negro arts" at Yale University in New Haven.
Carl Van Vechten died in December 21, 1964 in New York at the age of 84.
Born in 1880 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Carl reportedly began taking photographs at age 15 with a box camera, but officially began his career in photography at age 52.
Van Vechten became a music critic and Parisian correspondent for The New York Times, served as a crime reporter for Hearst Publications, and by age 40 started writing novels, most of which covered life in the 1920s.
Carl's friends included famous names such as Gertrude Stein, Paul Robeson, and Eugene O'Neil, and captured thousands of subjects, including Joe Louis, Salvador Dali, and William Faulkner.
In 1947, Carl established a memorial fund in honor of author and civil rights activist James Weldon Johnson, which culminated into a named collection of photographs and letters of the "Negro arts" at Yale University in New Haven.
Carl Van Vechten died in December 21, 1964 in New York at the age of 84.
Person TypeIndividual
American, 1894 - 1985
