DREISER, Theodore [Carl Van Vechten] — SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH

A fine 7" x 9-1/4" informal photographic "head shot" portrait by Carl Van Vechten of a seventy-year old Dreiser with a smile bordering on a laugh. INSCRIBED and SIGNED at the bottom with fine contrast: "To lovely Helen/with love and/admiration-/from T.D./Hollywood/January--/1942." Helen Richardson first met Dreiser in 1919 and married him in 1944. Dreiser left his entire estate to her in his will and, after her death in 1955, she was buried next to him. In 1942, however, Dreiser and Helen were often apart with Dreiser often romantically involved with another woman. Just a few months after inscribing this photograph to his future wife, Dreiser had an eleven-day fling with one of his ardent female admirers. Still, Dreiser's inscription captures the great feeling he had for Helen from the beginning. W. A. Swanberg in his biography DREISER sums up well their relationship: "Although he still threatened at times to leave her, Dreiser needed Helen for survival, Helen knew that he needed her, and he knew that she knew" (p. 478).. About Fine with a superb association