Signed: Frieda Kahlo de Riviera (in pencil on back); March 19, 1932, XVIi 25 (in red ink on back); PHOTOGRAPH BY CARL VAN VECHTEN, CANNOT BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION (blue ink stamp on back)
Size: H: 8 15/16” x W: 6 13/16”
“I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.” -Frida Kahlo
Carl van Vechten, “Marlon Brando in a Streetcar Named Desire” 1948
CARL VAN VECHTEN (1880-1964) USA
Marlon Brando 1948
Signed: Brando in a Streetcar Named Desire, XIX F F 11, Dec 27. 48 (in ink on back); PHOTOGRAPH BY CARL VAN VECHTEN, 101 CENTRAL PARK WEST, CANNOT BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION (ink stamp on back)
Size: H: 6 ¾” x W: 4 7/8”
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. Van Vechten took photographs of many the major artists and intellectuals of the first half of the 20th century. The importance of these images is twofold; they document a specific time and milieu in 20th-century American history that was neglected by others, and they are among some of the earliest art photography images created.
Signed: Anna May Wong 1932 (in pencil on back); PHOTOGRAPH BY CARL VAN VECHTEN CANNOT BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION (ink stamp on back)
Size: H: 9 7/8”x W: 7 7/8”
Anna May Wong (1905 – 1961) was the first Chinese American actress to become a movie star in a career that spanned both the silent movie era and the advent of the talkies, along with starring roles on the stage, and in radio and television, even hosting her own television show at one point. This is all the more remarkable considering the racist times in which she worked. Many Asian actresses have been acclaimed since, under less adverse conditions, but none have reached Wong’s level. Some of her more notable silent movies include a leading role in The Toll of the Sea, one of the first color movies, The Thief of Bagdad, which starred Douglas Fairbanks, and Piccadilly. She was also featured in some notable talkies, including Shanghai Express, which co-starred Marlene Dietrich, and Daughter of the Dragon, in which she starred opposite an Asian leading man, Sessue Hayakawa. Early in her career, she was seen as a sex symbol, a feat other Asian actresses would not match for decades.
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