Articles from Vanity Fair Magazine
Assorted photographs of the assembled German, Spanish, Belgian, Russian, Norwegian and British royal families, posed as they gathered to attend the the 1894 and 1896 Royal weddings at Coburg; also pictured is the group photo snapped at the 1898 shooting party at Sandingham. Queen Victoria appears in two of the pictures, while Kaiser Wilhelm II can be seen in all of them.
This cartoon was drawn by the artist Reginald Marsh (1898 – 1954), who had a swell time comparing and contrasting the bio-diversity along 1922 Fifth Avenue; from the free-verse poets on Eighth Avenue up to the narrow-nosed society swanks on Sixty-Eighth Street -and everyone else in between.
Here is a petite notice that appeared in a 1915 issue of VANITY FAIR heralding a new portrait by the British painter William Orpen (1878 – 1931), which depicted the likeness of a popular American stage actress Mrs. Oscar Lewisohn (Edna May Pettie 1878 – 1948). The anonymous reviewer compared the portrait styles of Orpen with that of London’s reigning portrait painter, John Singer Sargent:
Sargent had a way of showing his sitters as they didn’t think they looked. On the other hand, Orpen has a trick of making his sitters look like what they would like to be.
A VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE profile of the American painter Robert Henri (1865 – 1929):
Robert Henri does not sympathize with the artists who throw their work in the face of the public with a ‘There, take it or leave it.’ Indeed, he has an almost hieratic belief in the power of the fine arts, not merely to delight, but to improve, to uplift and to educate the masses.
Click here to read further about the 1913 Armory show.
A VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE profile of the American painter Robert Henri (1865 – 1929):
Robert Henri does not sympathize with the artists who throw their work in the face of the public with a ‘There, take it or leave it.’ Indeed, he has an almost hieratic belief in the power of the fine arts, not merely to delight, but to improve, to uplift and to educate the masses.
Click here to read further about the 1913 Armory show.
In five short paragraphs, this writer (Ard Choille), nicely sums up the chumminess that made up the royal families of old Europe and the vital role Queen Victoria played in the creation and maintenance of that bond:
Until the outbreak of the war the royal families of the various nations made up a wonderful club, the like of which had never been known before. Judging from the society papers, most of Europe existed for their convenience, and even the variety of military uniforms was kept up in order that royalty, while at home or abroad, might have the opportunity to change its clothes as often as possible
Attached is a page from VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE depicting the ten European princesses from 1914, having benefited from full hair and make-up, posing bemedaled and amused in full military dress before the society magazine cameras.
The Royals pictured on this page were all granted the ceremonial rank of ‘Colonel’ in the household cavalry units within their respective principalities, as well as a few of the cavalry regiments outside their domains.
Several of the Royal and Imperial women in Europe, who are possessed of military rank, have lost their colonelcies in foreign regiments by the World War. Thus, the Czarina and the Russian Grand Duchess, as well as Queen Mary of England, have been deprived of their commands in the Kaiser’s army.
A war-time interview with the Welsh painter Augustus John (1878 – 1961).
The fashion editors who presided over the very young VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE made an effort to keep pace with the dramatic changes taking place in the design of ladies hats and wraps for 1921. The attached article is a case in point.
With the publishing of the first part of his autobiography, Reveries Over Childhood and Youth, W.B. Yeats (1865 – 1939) got some attention in the American press. Here is a small notice from an American society magazine which praises his ability as an artist to influence other writers, such as George Bernard Shaw, John M. Synge, George Moore and Dr. Douglas Hyde.
