CARL VAN VECHTEN AND THE IRREVERENT DECADES

CARL VAN VECHTEN AND THE IRREVERENT DECADES by Kellner, Bruce. Hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780806108087.

In a brilliant evocation of a whole age, from la belle epoch through the legendary Twenties, Bruce Kellner has traced the fascinating life of Carl Van Vechten, one of America’s most distinguished men of letters. Carl Van Vechten was a colorful character who employed his many talents in varied careers- critic, essayist, novelist, photographer, collector— and constant dilettante, a most fetid advocate of the arts. He was always on the scene- in New York for the 69th Armory Show, in Paris for the premiere of The Rites of Spring, in Hollywood before the silver screen began to tarnish, in Harlem for its 1925 Renaissance. And the Splendid Drunken Twenties, as he liked to call them, may well have been his invention. Carl Van Vechten’s story sparkles with the names of the century’s most celebrated creative artists. As friend and mentor, Van Vechten strolled among them through the liveliest periods in recent history. This biography documents that scintillating stroll, the landmarks it passed and those it established. Bruce Kellner’s lively narrative is enriched by rare photographs of Van Vechten and his acquaintances, including thirty-two of Van Vechten’s own superb portrait photographs of writers, theatrical personages, and others, ranging from the 1930’s to the 1960’s. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bruce Kellner became acquainted with Carl Van Vechten in the early 1950’s through his (Kellner’s) interest in Gertrude Stein. The friendship which resulted led him to Van Vechten’s books, then to a conviction of his importance to the artistic life of the twentieth century, and finally to this biography. Mr. Kellner, who lies in Oneonta, New York, is a teacher and writer, who “cannot imagine a vocation that is not also an avocation.” —from dust jacket. (1968)