Generations in Black & White: Photographs by Carl Van Vechten from the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection
(Click Title to Order)

Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Format: Hardcover
Publication Date: October 1993
Available for delivery in 2 - 3 Days

What makes this book so fascinating is the number of photographs it contains of the most important personalities of the Harlem Renaissance.  This treasure of a book contains photographs of many of the AA authors highlighted on this web site; including W. E. B. Du Bois, Claude McKay, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Arna Bontemps, Countee Cullen, Richard Wright, Ann Petry, John O. Killens, and James Baldwin. -- AALBC 

A volume of beauty and power, a record of black excellence that will engage and inform, this portfolio constitutes a stunning celebration of African American achievement in the 20th century. Arranged chronologically, each image "demonstrates how the achievements of one generation are extended and magnified through the achievements of succeeding generations." 83 photorgaphs.

Review from BookList :
Van Vechten had long been a champion of African American theater, dance, and music, but his controversial 1926 novel "Nigger Heaven" alienated much of the black intelligentsia. Despite this anomalous position, Byrd says, Van Vechten continued to celebrate "African American art forms--the spirituals, the blues, jazz." Into the 1960s, Van Vechten set up collections of photography and other cultural artifacts at both black and white universities. The Yale collection, which honors the multitalented James Weldon Johnson, includes some 15,000 of Van Vechten's photographs of acquaintances and friends, black and white. Van Vechten's photographs, Byrd notes, have artistic as well as documentary value: Van Vechten made his subject's pose "the primary locus of meaning," and produced "startling, dramatic, and memorable effects." Van Vechten's portraits of artists, athletes, academics, and activists he respected--from W. E. B. Du Bois and Mary McLeod Bethune to Diahann Carroll and Billy Dee Williams--reflect his appreciation of "the diverse contributions of African Americans."
-Mary Carroll

Related Links

The Carl Van Vechten Photographs Collection at the Library of Congress consists of 1,395 photographs taken by American photographer Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) between 1932 and 1964
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/vvhome.html

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