Tag: truman capote

Truman Capote: “Occasionally There Were Humans”

Photographer Unknown, Occasionally There Were Humans

“Sometimes on flat boring afternoons, he’d squatted on the curb of St. Deval Street and daydreamed silent pearly snow clouds into sifting coldly through the boughs of the dry, dirty trees. Snow falling in August and silvering the glassy pavement, the ghostly flakes icing his hair, coating rooftops, changing the grimy old neighborhood into a hushed frozen white wasteland uninhabited except for himself and a menagerie of wonder-beasts: albino antelopes, and ivory-breasted snowbirds; and occasionally there were humans, such fantastic folk as Mr Mystery, the vaudeville hypnotist, and Lucky Rogers, the movie star, and Madame Veronica, who read fortunes in a Vieux Carré tearoom.”

—-Truman Capote, Other Voices, Other Rooms

Truman Capote: “Any Love is Natural and Beautiful”

Photographers Unknown, Any Love is Natural and Beautiful

“Any love is natural and beautiful that lies within a person’s nature; only hypocrites would hold a man responsible for what he loves, emotional illiterates and those of righteous envy, who, in their agitated concern, mistake so frequently the arrow pointing to heaven for the one that leads to hell.”
― Truman Capote, Other Voices, Other Rooms

Leather and Chrysanthemums

Photographer Unknown, (Leather and Golden Chrysanthemums)

“Chrysanthemums”, my friend commented as we moved through ur garden stalking flower-show blossoms with decapitating shears, “are like lions. Kingly character. I always expect them to spring. To turn on me with a growl and a roar.’

― Truman Capote, The Thanksgiving Visitor

Truman Capote: “Any Love is Natural and Beautiful”

Photographer Unknown, Any Love is Natural and Beautiful

“Any love is natural and beautiful that lies within a person’s nature; only hypocrites would hold a man responsible for what he loves, emotional illiterates and those of righteous envy, who, in their agitated concern, mistake so frequently the arrow pointing to heaven for the one that leads to hell.”   

-Truman Capote, Other Voices, Other Rooms

Irving Penn

Irving Penn, “Truman Capote, New York”, 1965 (Printed 1986), Platinum-Palladium Print, Edition of 20, Art Institute of Chicago

“Irving Penn’s portraits reflect a sensitivity to spatial arrangement that he retained for much of his career. For these portraits, Penn preferred a studio environment to actual locations. In more remote locations he actually constructed flimsy tents, which seems odd considering he had travelled to remote sites only to bring his subjects indoors. There, he created an environment that allowed the subject collaborate, without letting them take over completely, giving a sense of shared control between artist and sitter.

Penn augmented his no-frills studio with a plain, three-sided booth of gray walls that converged into a narrow corner. Placing his subjects into this unwelcoming maw likely left them gently contained and slightly confused, with the result that the camera became witness to a joint creative effort between subject and artist induced by the awkwardness of the situation. The result was like the improvisational art of the time — bebop, Abstract Expressionism, Kerouac’s run-on narratives — with portraits that were about their making.”                        – Peter Malone, Hyperallergic

Paul Cadmus and Truman Capote

Paul Cadmus, “Playground”, 1948, Egg Tempera on Panel, 59.7 x 44.5 cm, Georgia Museum of Art

Paul Cadmus remembered Capote at an outdoor café in Venice shortly after the war. “Truman lifted his cape up and down, up and down, and said, “Come to Taormina! Come to Taormina!”“ Cadmus recalled. The painter took Capote’s advice and met him at the Italian resort. One day Capote returned from the post office with the mail. “I bring tidings of disaster!” he shouted. “Tennessee’s play is a great success!” “I always liked Truman”, said Cadmus. “He didn’t give a damn what people thought of his voice or anything else. Brave little thing”.