{"id":3095,"date":"2017-09-16T04:02:09","date_gmt":"2017-09-16T04:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/?p=3095"},"modified":"2017-09-16T04:29:36","modified_gmt":"2017-09-16T04:29:36","slug":"carl-van-vechten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/2017\/09\/16\/carl-van-vechten\/","title":{"rendered":"Carl Van Vechten"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carl Van Vechten \u2013 Mina Loy Biography Project<\/p>\n

Gallup, Donald. \u201cCarl Van Vechten.\u201d The Yale University Library Gazette,<\/em> vol. 55, no. 2, 1980, pp. 53\u201394, www.jstor.org\/stable\/40858746<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Donald Gallup published this article in conjunction with a centenary exhibition of Carl Van Vechten\u2019s gifts from his collection to Yale University, including original manuscripts of poems, photographs, and personal writings from some of the most influential artists of the century. Gallup reflects upon Van Vechten\u2019s status as one of the foremost American collectors and patrons of the arts. Van Vechten\u2019s collection exhibits his affinity for the work of black artists, boasting original manuscripts from Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Richard Wright, as well as white artists like Herman Melville, Henry Miller, Man Ray, Aaron Copland, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Wallace Stevens. The three documents from Mina Loy present in the collection demonstrate the frequent correspondence between the two after their meeting in Florence. The first is an undated letter from Loy to Van Vechten signed \u201cSaltino, Italy” and enclosed with some fashion drawings. The next item Gallup describes is an 18 by 12\u00bd inch signed pencil drawing of Van Vechten. The final item from Loy is a photograph dated 19 December 1937.<\/p>\n

Hanscombe, Gillan E. and Virginia L. Smyers. Writing for their Lives: The Modernist Women 1910-1940. <\/em>Northeastern University Press, 1988. http:\/\/www.english.illinois.edu\/maps\/poets\/g_l\/loy\/bio.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

In Writing for Their Lives<\/em>, Gillian Hanscombe and Virginia Smyers assemble a mosaic of influential female modernists through a series of comprehensive biographical entries. Mina Loy\u2019s entry focuses on her influences from and correspondences with other figures in the movement. Hanscombe and Smyers assert Loy occupied a central position within the New York avant-garde, illustrated when a group of poets \u201cdisaffected\u201d with strict editorial policies founded Others <\/em>magazine and chose Mina Loy as \u201ctheir rallying point.\u201d The entry elaborates upon Loy\u2019s relationship with her literary agents, Mabel Dodge and Carl Van Vechten, with whom she entrusted her work for publication in \u201cappropriate little magazines in New York\u201d (112-128).<\/p>\n

Kouidis, Virginia M. \u201cRediscovering Our Sources: The Poetry of Mina Loy.\u201d Boundary 2<\/em>, vol. 8, no. 3, 1980, pp. 167\u2013188, www.jstor.org\/stable\/302972<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In this article, Virginia Kouidis contextualizes Mina Loy \u201cin her cultural and literary milieu\u201d while arguing modern scholarship must recognize Loy\u2019s status alongside her avant-garde and modernist peers (168). She describes the avant-garde partnerships Loy cultivated at Villa Curonia, Mabel Dodge\u2019s Florence home. Kouidis argues Dodge and Van Vechten, who also stayed at Dodge\u2019s villa as her guest, served as agents and ambassadors for Loy\u2019s poetry, \u201cand confirmed her desire to visit America\u201d (170). Kouidis\u2019 article offers a transatlantic bridge between Mina Loy\u2019s life in Italy and her voyage to New York in 1916.<\/p>\n

MacLeod, Kirsten. \u201cThe \u2018Librarian’s Dream-Prince\u2019: Carl Van Vechten and America’s Modernist Cultural Archives Industry.\u201d Libraries & the Cultural Record<\/em>, vol. 46, no. 4, 2011, pp. 360\u2013387, www.jstor.org\/stable\/23053604<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kristen MacLeod\u2019s 2011 article traces the wide-ranging influence of Carl Van Vechten, \u201ca cultural chameleon\u201d invested \u201cin the worlds of music, theater, film, literature, art, and photography\u201d (361). His success at promoting avant-garde writers such as Wallace Stevens, Langston Hughes, Gertrude Stein, and Mina Loy demonstrates his influence as an \u201cunofficial literary agent\u201d (361). MacLeod argues Van Vechten\u2019s \u201ccollecting has been largely overlooked in favor of\u201d his Harlem Renaissance associations (362). She believes Van Vechten\u2019s \u201cmost important role\u201d was \u201cas a collector and archivist of American modernism\u201d (360). The article explores Van Vechten\u2019s entrance into the world of collecting as a professional and amateur, and his contributions to the archives of \u201ctwentieth-century American cultural life.\u201d (362).<\/p>\n

Parmar, Sandeep. \u201cThe Mina Loy papers: Archival spectres.\u201d Reading Mina Loy\u2019s Autobiographies: Myth of the Modern Woman<\/em>. Bloomsbury Academic. 2013.<\/p>\n

In this 2013 study, Sandeep Parmar responds to Roger Conover\u2019s argument in the introduction to the 1996 edition of The Lost Lunar Baedeker <\/em>that Mina Loy has been denied a voice of her own. Parmar seeks to amend this gap in scholarship by analyzing seven of Loy\u2019s unpublished autobiographies, exploring their implications for our understanding of modernist literature and what insights they give us into Loy as a \u201cmodern woman.\u201d In her introduction, Parmar examines Loy\u2019s web of connections to other modernist artists and patrons, including Carl Van Vechten. She characterizes Van Vechten as a vital part of Loy\u2019s initial exposure in avant-garde circles, \u201cnot only an influential editor\u2026 but also Loy\u2019s first literary advisor and friend\u201d (\u201cThe Mina Loy papers\u201d).<\/p>\n

Schmid, Julie. \u201cMina Loy\u2019s Futurist Theatre.\u201d Performing Arts Journal<\/em>, vol. 18, no. 1, 1996, pp. 1\u20137, www.jstor.org\/stable\/3245807<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In this article, Julie Schmid argues Mina Loy\u2019s Futurist plays present \u201cone of the only feminist responses to\u2026 the futurist dramatic aesthetic,\u201d an anomaly in a sea of male voices (1). Schmid traces the origins of Loy\u2019s dramatic works, Two Plays<\/em> (1915) and The Pamperers <\/em>(1916), to her poetic awakening while living in Italy between 1906 and 1916. It was during this period of creative flourishing that Loy first met Carl Van Vechten in Florence. Schmid establishes context for Loy\u2019s first encounters with the American and European avant-garde artists living in Florence such as Vechten, Mabel Dodge, Gertrude Stein, and Filippo Marinetti (2). Schmid argues Loy\u2019s \u201cbrief interest in futurism\u201d was the catalyst for her poetic career, referencing a letter to Van Vechten in which Loy states \u201cMarinetti influenced me \u2013 merely by waking me up\u201d (2).<\/p>\n

Biographical Information:<\/p>\n