VAN VECHTEN, CARL

VAN VECHTEN, CARL. [1923–1930] Photographer and prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance (as a white enthralled by black culture). Friend of Paul Robeson and Ethel Waters as well as the Alfred Knopfs. Married to the actress Fania Marinoff, to whom he refers simply as “Marinoff.” He and cohorts apparently passed days and nights in a boozy state of delirium that he recorded in brief journal entries. Published as The Splendid Drunken Twenties: Selections from the Daybooks, 1922–1930, edited by Bruce Kellner. Urbana and Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 2003.