Karl Priebe’s good friend Carl Van Vechten was born 140 years ago today, 17 June 1880. Van Vechten was a writer, critic and photographer, and, like Priebe, a white ally of African-American writers, artists and performers. His photographic portraits of participants in the Harlem renaissance document luminaries as well as lesser known but key figures in avant-garde circles of the 1920s and ‘30s. Van Vechten printed his portrait photographs as “real photo” postcards (photographic prints) and carried on a lively correspondence with Priebe who replied with his own handpainted postcards. Priebe’s collection of 4,000 of Van Vechten’s photographic postcards now reside with Priebe’s papers at Marquette University in Milwaukee. This remarkable collection is accessible online at the website of the Department of Special Collections, Raynor Memorial Libraries at Marquette University:
https://cdm16280.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p128701coll2
The texts of the postcards have been transcribed and are available as a chronological narrative:
https://www.marquette.edu/library/archives/cdm/CVV/CVV_ReadPostcards.pdf