Bessie Smith (Carl Van Vechten)

This one is a threefer: blues singer Bessie Smith, photographer Carl Van Vechten, and printer Richard Benson. Van Vechten made striking portraits, chronicling the writers, musicians, athletes, and politicians of his time. Most notably he captured the stars of the Harlem Renaissance. Here’s Bessie Smith in 1936 from Van Vechten’s unrealized portfolio Noble Black Women: The Harlem Renaissance and After. Nicknamed the “Empress of the Blues” and formerly Queen of the Blues, she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989. Then, in 1980, concerned that Van Vechten’s fragile negatives were deteriorating, Richard Benson, in conjunction with the Eakins Press Foundation, transformed fifty of the portraits into handmade gravure prints. This is one of them. A beautiful portrait of an important artist.