Carl Van Vechten

Carl Van Vechten (June 17, 1880 – December 21, 1964) was an American writer and photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein.

In the 1930s, Van Vechten began taking portrait photographs. Among the many individuals he photographed were Gertrude Stein, George Schuyler, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Henry Miller, Anna May Wong, Jane Bowles, Mahalia Jackson, W. Somerset Maugham, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Bessie Smith, Paul Cadmus, Marc Chagall, Horst P. Horst, Georgia O'Keeffe, Gore Vidal, Sidney Lumet, James Stewart, Marlon Brando, Orson Welles, Norman Mailer, Evelyn Waugh, Adele Addison, Erskine Caldwell, Ella Fitzgerald, Alfred Stieglitz, Truman Capote, Billie Holiday, Constance Collier, Lin Yutang, Cesar Romero, Tallulah Bankhead and Sir Laurence Olivier.