(Note: This post was authored by Taylor McNeilly, Processing & Reference Archivist.) This week, I thought I would start a new tradition of writing the occasional blog post for #ManuscriptMonday, a social media hashtag the library has been using for a little while now. For the inaugural post, I thought I’d talk about our “inaugural” (so to speak) collection, MS-1: the Carl Van Vechten Mark Lutz Collection.

Signed photograph of Gertrude Stein taken by Carl Van Vechten, part of the Carl Van Vechten Mark Lutz Collection.

For those of you unfamiliar with the two, Carl Van Vechten is a famous literary figure in the early- to mid-twentieth century. He was the close friend and literary executor of Gertrude Stein (they even had pet names for each other: Papa Woojums and Baby Woojums), as well as a patron of the Harlem Renaissance, a writer in his own right, and a photographer. Mark Lutz was a University of Richmond alumnus who was introduced to Van Vechten in the 1930s. The two became close friends and long-time lovers, their relationship being an open secret despite Van Vechten’s marriage.

Lutz and Van Vechten were both close to Stein and her life partner, Alice B. Toklas. Our collection includes many items written or photographed by one and inscribed to another, including a copy of Stein’s privately printed Portrait of Mabel Dodge at the Villa Curonia, bound with wallpaper and inscribed to Lutz. Correspondence between the four is also included in the collection, although all correspondence between Lutz and Van Vechten was destroyed per Lutz’s wishes upon his death.

The collection also includes items pertaining to Van Vechten’s personal work, including his relationship with many Harlem Renaissance writers. Items notably include correspondence with and works by Langston Hughes, whose material we also hold in the Dr. and Mrs. Wyatt Tee Walker Collection. Van Vechten’s photography is also well represented, including many of his most famous photographs depicting Stein, Toklas, and Lutz. Some of these are also inscribed, including a photograph (pictured above) of Stein signed by Van Vechten with Stein’s inscription below that: “To Mark, here in Virginia for Mark everywhere, always.”

This collection has such amazing depth that I could go on for hours about this, but unfortunately I don’t have the time. Luckily, this collection is fully processed and available for researcher use! So feel free to set up an appointment to view this collection and discover what else it holds.