Author Description

The travel albums of photographer George Platt Lynes, publisher Monroe Wheeler, and writer Glenway Wescott are illuminating documents of the American expatriate years. Together, this extraordinary minage-`-trois spent the heady interwar period frequenting Paris, Villefranche-sur-Mer, and other European cities, meeting up with such lively personalities as Thornton Wilder, Jean Cocteau, Katherine Anne Porter, Man Ray, Reni Crevel, and Christian Birard. Inspired by the encouragement of Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and Jane Heap, all three men went on to pursue vibrant careers in the arts. Platt Lynes became a celebrated photographer in 1931; Wheeler, with Wescotts sister-in-law, Barbara Harrison, started the extraordinary little press, Harrison of Paris in 1930; and Wescott became a bestselling fiction writer in 1927. The photographs represented here date from the threesomes first meeting, and underscore the intimate bond they shared. It is a story of youthfu! l passion and enthusiasm that spea ks to the enduring ties that held these three talented men together throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.