Edna St. Vincent Millay (Primary Title)
Man Ray, American, 1890 - 1976 (Artist)
The American poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923 for The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver. Only the third woman to win this prestigious award, St. Vincent Millay’s collection of recent poems addressed themes of female sexuality and feminism, which upset the male-dominated American literary establishment of the time. Two years earlier, in January 1921, she had moved to Paris from New York to join the ranks of the American expatriate community. In Man Ray’s portrait, the smiling poet is seated in front of a partially open hotel window and a view of a balcony to her right. Daylight streams in and illuminates one side of her face and figure, emphasizing her red hair, pale skin, and white blouse. A variant photograph from the same portrait session, in which St. Vincent Millay wears a different blouse with a large frilly collar, with a shawl wrapped tightly around her, and her hair brushed into a neat wave across her forehead, was published in the April 1923 issue of Vanity Fair.
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