Spanish Harlem (“American Scene” series, No. 3)

Few photographers have captured more compelling images of the untamed American West than Timothy H. O’Sullivan.

Author Carl Van Vechten (1880–1964) began making portraits in 1932. Over the next three decades, he asked writers, musicians, athletes, politicians, and others to sit for him—many of them central figures in the Harlem Renaissance.

In the nineteenth century, people from all walks of life embraced the new medium of photography with unparalleled enthusiasm. For artist and inventor Samuel F. B.