Sergei Diaghilev and Russian Art
(Vanity Fair, 1916)
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Vanity Fair Magazine
Articles from Vanity Fair Magazine
Ladies’ Golf Attire by Burberrys
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1922)
A Burberry’s tweed, self-belted golf suit for the fashionable woman of 1922.
Henri Matisse Viewing in New York
(Vanity Fair, 1915)
This article will give you a good look at how the seeds were sewn as early as 1915 to ensure the rise of New York City as one of the great art centers of the world. For the first time since the 1913 Armory Show, New York was again to host an important exhibition of the European modernists. Much of the article concerns Henri Matisse (1869 – 1954) and is illustrated with a portrait of the artist by the photographer Edward Steichen.
Things were changing – not long after New York was proclaimed as the commercial capital of the art world, America was recognized as the preeminent world power, click here to read about it…
Henri Matisse Viewing in New York
(Vanity Fair, 1915)
This article will give you a good look at how the seeds were sewn as early as 1915 to ensure the rise of New York City as one of the great art centers of the world. For the first time since the 1913 Armory Show, New York was again to host an important exhibition of the European modernists. Much of the article concerns Henri Matisse (1869 – 1954) and is illustrated with a portrait of the artist by the photographer Edward Steichen.
Things were changing – not long after New York was proclaimed as the commercial capital of the art world, America was recognized as the preeminent world power, click here to read about it…
The Versatile Mrs Jessup
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1922)
Marion Hall Zinderstein Jessup has one of the most versatile games on the courts. Overhead and off the ground, she possesses virtually all the strokes in tennis, forehand, backhand, lob, smash, volley and block volley, yet she has a weakness, one that has cost her many an important match, and when she met Mrs Mallory in 1920, probably the national championship.
In Praise of Tennis Flannels
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1918)
For tennis, of course, the conventional flannel trousers will continue their popularity this season. But many men will also wear white duck or twill trousers, which has the advantage of great coolness and comparatively easy to launder… -but wait! the excitement does not stop with such trilling prose! The reader will also find a lovely fashion drawing of some awfully mannly tennis players as well as photographs of the fashions being praised.
Men’s Tennis Clothes
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1921)
Four incredible sketches depicting the natty tennis clothing of 1921.
Crepe de Chine Makes it’s Appearance on the Tennis Court
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1916)
In 1916 Coco Channel was not a household word in American fashion circles yet, but judging by this fashion editorial that appeared in Vanity Fair magazine, one can assume that her presence was being felt.
U.S. Naval Officers Insignia
(Vanity Fair, 1918)
Yet another examination of U.S. Navy officer insignia with additional illustrations of American naval rating patches.
Essential Elements in Golf
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1918)
Throughout the fall of 1918, American golf enthusiast H.B. Martin (Harry Brownlow Martin, 1873 – 1965), who was not one to dally on the links when there are hard questions to be asked, approached the champions of the game with one query in mind:
What is the ONE essential thing in golf?
As you will read for yourself, he came away with many different responses.
Suits and Accessories for Summer, 1919
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1919)
A look at the suits and fashion trends for the Summer of 1919.
Tristann Tzara on Dada
(Vanity Fair, 1922)
An essay by one of the founders of Dada, Tristan Tzara (Sami Rosenstock a.k.a. Samuel Rosenstock; 1896 – 1963), who eloquently explains the origins of the movement:
Dadaism is a characteristic symptom of the disordered modern world…
In Defense of Literary Rebels
(Vanity Fair, 1920)
Literary critic Edmund Wilson (1895 – 1972) was a big part of the intellectual world that existed in New York throughout much of the Twenties through the Fifties. His reviews could be found in a number of magazines such as VANITY FAIR, THE DIAL and THE NEW REPUBLIC. Wilson is remembered for championing many of the younger poets that we still read to this day and in this review, Bunny Wilson celebrated the new poetic form that the modern era had created: free verse. Good words can be read on behalf of the poetry of Carl Sandburg and Amy Lowell.
W.W. I Art and the Canadian War Memorial
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1919)
An illustrated article from the chic Conde Nast magazine, VANITY FAIR, regarding one of the great Canadian disappointments of the immediate post-war years: the failure to build the Canadian war memorial building. By the summer of 1919 1,000 paintings and drawings depicting the experiences of the World War had been amassed with the intention of displaying them in a museum that was to serve as a remembrance to the Canadian servicemen of that war.
Throughout the Twenties and Thirties there were numerous advisory groups charged with the task of launching the museum, but they were never able to agree on key issues. With the outbreak of the Second World War the urgency of the project took root – and, finally, the Canadian War Museum was officially established in 1942 (and opend in 1967).
There are two paintings illustrating the article: Camouflaged Ships by E. Wadsworth and Strathcona Horse on the March by A.J. Munnings.
Drawings of the Soissons Trenches
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1915)
French war artist Charles Huard (1875 – 1965) produced theses seven illustrations of French Poilus as they once stood guard in the frozen misery of the Soisson trenches during the first winter of the war.
Huard’s experiences as a war artist can be read in his memoir: My Home In The Field Of Honor (1916)
World War I Pictures by British Artists Seen in America
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1919)
The attached VANITY FAIR art review by Christian Brinton (1870 – 1942) covered the first public exhibition of the British War Artists to be shown on American shores (1919):
A direct product of war and war conditions, it reflects not only the varied aspects and incidents of the great struggle, but but also the actual state of British artistic taste at the present moment…England has been the first to enlist the services of the artist, and the readiest to grant him the measure of official standing so manifestly his due.
Launched jointly by the British Ministry of Information and the Worcester Art Museum, the exhibit was comprised of almost 250 paintings. This review discusses the art of Paul Nash, Muirhead Bone, Sir John Lavery, James McBey,Sir William Orpen, Augustus John, C.R.W. Nevinson, John Everett, Frank Brangwyn and Eric Kennington.
FRANCE AROUSED: Created by Jo Davidson
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1917)
An illustrated article about the American sculptor Jo Davidson (1883 – 1952) and his creation, FRANCE AROUSED. The Davidson piece, a colossal depiction of France as an outraged warrior queen, was intended for the French village of Senlis to serve as a memorial to that remarkable day in September, 1914, when the German drive on Paris was stopped and driven back. It was at Senlis where the earlier successes of the German Army were reversed.
To those in America and Europe who believed in the new doctrine of political equality, it was the most thrilling day in her history.
When France in wrath
Her giant – limbs
upreared,
And with that oath,
Which smote air,
Earth and sea
Stamped her strong
foot and said she
Would be free.
The statue, which is twenty feet high, was made in the sculptor’s studio in McDougal Alley (NYC), where it was photographed for the pages of VANITY FAIR.
In 1919, Jo Davidson would endeavor to create a number of busts depicting the various entente statesmen who participated in the Peace Treaty.
The Art of Thomas Hart Benton
(Vanity Fair, 1922)
When this profile of the thirty-tree year-old Thomas Hart Benton (1889 – 1975) was published, the painter was not as yet recognized as the eccentric that history remembers him to have been. The anonymous journalist took an enormous interest in understanding Benton’s education and the source of his inspiration.
Click hereto read a 1936 art review regarding the paintings of Grant Wood.