The Black Forties, Van Vechten Style

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So I was tooling around looking for images to illustrate an article about Harlem, when I came upon a cache of stunning color photos, a few of which are shown here. These were all shot in New York City in 1940 and 1941: A socialite poses in an oversized hat. Youths hang out at a municipal pool in Harlem. As for the little boy, whose name is Julius Perkins, Jr., and about whom I can't find one bit of information (except that there is also a photo of him with, of all people, Tallulah Bankhead), he wears that scarf with such twenty-first century attitude that it's almost scary. Maybe Tallulah taught him how.

You may recognize the photographer's style, but if you don't, the lensman was
Carl Van Vechten, a white man whose portfolio of black people—particularly celebrities, literati, entertainers, famous folks and the like—is huge, and about whom I will be writing again. There is much to say about the strange man, not the least of which is that he wrote a book called Nigger Heaven—bold for a man who liked to hang out with black people. Right now, though, please enjoy his images of ordinary folks. And for more visit Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript online Library.

 Courtesy the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

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