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July 25, 2003|Volume 31, Number 33|Five-Week Issue



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Austrian actress Luise Rainer is among the women featured in the exhibit "Extravagant Crowd: Carl Van Vechten's Portraits of Women," on view July 28-Oct. 18.



Beinecke Library to celebrate women in the arts

The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library will celebrate women in the arts with two new exhibitions and a series of related events that will include readings by novelist Alice Walker and poet Jorie Graham, film screenings and a concert.

The exhibitions -- "Intimate Circles: American Women in the Arts" and "Extravagant Crowd: Carl Van Vechten's Portraits of Women" -- will feature material from the Beinecke's collections documenting the contributions of American women in the artistic and literary movements of the early 20th century. Both exhibits will be on view July 28-Oct. 18.

"Intimate Circles" documents the lives of 61 women who helped guide the development of modern art, literature and theater well beyond their own lifetimes. The women featured in the exhibit range from those who nurtured communities of artists, such as Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Muriel Draper, Mabel Dodge Luhan and A'Lelia Walker, to influential writers, painters and performers such as Josephine Baker, Georgia O'Keeffe, Sara Teasdale, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) and Marianne Moore, to name just a few.

The exhibition explores the relationships among these women to reveal networks that shaped and defined the artistic movements of the period.

The images in "Extravagant Crowd" represent only a fraction of the photographs of women taken by writer and photographer Van Vechten, whose subjects included dancers, actresses, writers, artists, activists, singers, costume designers, photographers, educators, socialites and aesthetes. The exhibition includes portraits of some 50 women of achievement who Van Vechten photographed between 1932 and 1964 -- ranging from such famous figures as Billie Holiday to now-forgotten women who made significant contributions to the Broadway theater, the Harlem Renaissance, the early Hollywood film industry and the expatriate communities that thrived in Paris and London between the world wars.

Born in 1880, Van Vechten was a leading opera and music critic in the early 20th century and has been called America's first serious dance critic. He was also a best-selling novelist and promoted the work of such literary figures as Gertrude Stein, Langston Hughes and Nella Larsen. Van Vechten began photographing friends and professional acquaintances in 1932.

Catalogs for each exhibition will be published in August.

The exhibits will be open to the public free of charge Monday-Thursday, 8:30 a.m.-8 p.m.; and Friday, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Beginning in September, there will also be viewing hours on Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. The Beinecke Library is located at 121 Wall St. Admission is free.

The following special events have been scheduled in conjunction with the exhibits. All are open to the public free of charge.

"The American Women in the Arts Film Series," featuring works that have a connection to the Beinecke Library and its newest exhibitions, will be presented every Saturday in August at 1 p.m. in the Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St. Admission is free.

The films, and their relation to the Yale library's collection are:

Aug. 2 -- "The Age of Innocence," an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Edith Wharton, whose literary archive is housed at the Beinecke Library;

Aug. 9 -- "Reds," a fictionalized account of the work of radical journalists John Reed and Louise Bryant that features "interviews" with their contemporaries, including Adele Gutman Nathan whose theatrical career is featured in the "Intimate Circles" exhibition;

Aug. 16 -- "The Nun's Story," based on the novel by Kathryn Hulme, who is also featured in "Intimate Circles";

Aug. 23 -- "St. Louis Blues," featuring some of the most popular African-American musicians and performers of the 20th century, including several women whose portraits are on display in "Extravagant Crowd"; and

Aug. 30 -- "Rebecca," featuring a performance by Judith Anderson, who was a close friend of Van Vechten and whose photograph is in the Beinecke display.


Readings

Two of today's most renowned female writers will discuss their works in conjunction with the exhibits.

Alice Walker, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Color Purple," will read from her work and deliver a lecture at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 10, at Battell Chapel, corner of Elm and College streets.

Poet Jorie Graham, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her "Selected Poems," will read from her work at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 21, in the Beinecke Library.


Concert

The ensemble group Collegium Musicum will perform "Mina, Marianne, Maxine, and More," a concert of new compositions written for texts by Mina Loy, Marianne Moore, Maxine Kumin and other women represented in the Beinecke's collections, on Wednesday, Oct. 1 at 5:15 p.m. in the library.


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Campus Notes


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