Langston Hughes (Carl Van Vechten)

This one is a threefer: writer and activist Langston Hughes, 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 Langston Hughes in 1939. Do we really need to tell you who Langston Hughes was? He was just one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. It’s no wonder Van Vechten wanted to photograph him. 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 writer (and human).