Beschreibung:

Typed note signed ("Carlo!") by Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) to ballet dancer, Hugh Laing (1911-1988). New York City, postmarked Sept. 14, 1941. On real photo postcard self-portrait of Van Vechten. Carl Van Vechten New York, n.d., circa 1941. Van Vechten's blind-stamp imprint. A bust-length portrait of the photographer who looks away from the camera, a geometric pattern behind him. Van Vechten writes to his friend regarding an upcoming dinner party: "Please will you have awfully simple food on Tuesday, if its not too much to ask. My stummick is kinda upset...but we are both looking forward to seeing you both! l and k, Carlo!" Laing, born in Barbados is regarded as one of the most important dramatic ballet dancers of the 20th century. At 20, he moved to London to study art but soon switched his focus to ballet, studying with Olga Preobrajenska, Margaret Craske, and Marie Rambert, joining her experimental Ballet Club in 1933. Here, he met his long time partner, choreographer Antony Tudor. The pair moved to New York in 1939 to participate in the first season of the Ballet Theater (later the American Ballet Theater) where they both achieved acclaim. Laing moved in the same social circles as Van Vechten, with the photographer taking several portraits of the dancer, both candidly and in studio settings. Carl Van Vechten was well-connected to the people and places of the Harlem Renaissance at a time when racial segregation and Jim Crow laws were intense. Throughout the 1920s, he indulged in the parties and social scene of New York's Black creative class, which he captured in his provocatively titled novel Nigger Heaven. When the Depression came, he stopped writing novels and began taking photographs, most notably of influential African Americans, taking iconic portraits of thought leaders, entertainment stars, sports figures, artists, writers of the Harlem Renaissance, and more. His collection of over 9000 images, mostly portraits, is held at the Beinecke Library at Yale University.