You’d never guess that deep in the archives of the McNairy Library on Millersville University’s campus there are one-of-a-kind photos of key figures from the Harlem Renaissance. They include original portraits of Ella Fitzgerald, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gloria Vanderbilt, the now-late James Earl Jones and more. The collection from Carl Van Vechten is massive, and much of it is still being processed due to its size. It also includes Van Vechten’s personal writings and correspondence.
The photos were taken by famed photographer Van Vechten and presently, one of the photographs is on loan to the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. It’s a stunning and rare portrait of Nora Holt, a much-lauded musician of the Harlem Renaissance era. The photo is part of a traveling exhibit called “Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900 – 1939,” and the image of Holt will be on loan until December 2025. The exhibition showcases female African American artists who traveled to Paris seeking more rights and artistic freedoms than they had in the United States at that time.
While other collections of Van Vechten’s work exist at the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library and Yale University, this particular image of Holt could only be found in Millersville’s collection. The collection at Millersville is also assumed to be one of the largest, and spans decades with items from 1932 to 1964.
How did the collection land at Millersville University? Late professor emeritus of English, Dr. Bruce Kellner, who passed away in 2019, was a longtime friend and mentee of Van Vechten. He was also Van Vechten’s biographer and the executor of the famous photographer’s physical estate. Kellner himself was photographed by Van Vechten numerous times. Millersville University offers an art course, History & Aesthetics of Photography, that makes use of the incredible collection.
“Our collection may be unique because Kellner was the executor of his will. What we have in our archives may be from the artists’ personal collection,” says Frank Vitale, Assistant Professor, and University Archivist and Special Collections Librarian. “It’s a legacy of [Kellner’s] dedication to the institution and his belief in using these materials that we have such a fantastic collection here for our students.”
WHAT WAS THE HARLEM RENNAISSANCE?
Van Vechten was renowned for his documentation of key figures in Harlem during that pivotal time. This renaissance was a flourishing of Black art and culture in Harlem in New York City during the late 1900s and early 20th century due to diaspora African Americans leaving the South post-Civil War. As Vitale describes, saying, “It was a seedbed of African American creativity.”
More key figures from this time that Van Vechten photographed include the artist Langston Hughes, who was widely regarded as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance, the jazz singer Ethel Waters and more. To see a list of some of the other famous faces in archives, explore the links below:
- https://millersville.as.atlas-sys.com/repositories/2/archival_objects/27908
- https://millersville.as.atlas-sys.com/repositories/2/archival_objects/27928
To see more of the collection in person, please contact the Special Collections team located in the McNairy Library, a part of University College, with advanced notice by emailing Special.Collections@millersville.edu or calling 717-871-7134. To make a gift to Archives and Special Collections, visit millersville.edu/give2mu and select Archives and Special Collections Discretionary Fund from the drop down menu.
Those inquiring from the media should note that Van Vechten’s collections are protected under copyright and will require licensing from the Van Vechten Trust.