Portrait of a Lady

With a reputation built on such praise as "drenchingly beautiful" (attributed to Cecil Beaton), Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987), playwright and managing editor of Vanity Fair, sat for as many studio portraits as any starlet. Her personal photographic collection, recently transferred to the library, includes vintage prints by such notable photographers as Carl Van Vechten, Sir Cecil Beaton, Edward Steichen, and Alfred Eisenstaedt. This extraordinary visual archive documents Luce's careers in journalism, public affairs, and diplomacy; family estates as far-flung as Phoenix and Honolulu; and her hobbies of scuba diving and painting. The multi-talented Clare Boothe Brokaw, who made an advantageous second marriage in 1935 to Henry R. Luce, publisher of Time and Fortune, became a model for the successful modern woman and a champion of women's rights. In 1942 she won the congressional seat in her husband's Connecticut district; she became the first politically appointed woman ambassador in 1953, when Dwight D. Eisenhower, grateful for her tireless campaigning on his behalf, rewarded her with the post in Rome.

Soon after their marriage, she persuaded Luce to embark on a new, and ultimately phenomenally successful venture: a picture magazine called Life. The collection is rich in images by a number of premier photographers for that magazine. Margaret Bourke-White photographed Mrs. Luce on a wartime European tour; Thomas McAvoy caught her in an official portrait in Rome in 1956. Alfred Eisenstaedt idealized the Luces early in their marriage as the perfect couple playing croquet and shot several evocatively blurry images at a New Year's party in 1956, but his extensive record of the Luces' 1962 vacation in Majorca (including photos showing Eisenstaedt himself, taken by either Clare or Henry) is a model for what the good photojournalist can do.

Mrs. Luce traveled to Europe in 1939 to report on the war for Life. She gained an interview with Winston Churchill and was probably the first woman correspondent to visit the vulnerable Maginot Line. Since her coverage proved too substantial for a magazine article, it appeared as a book entitled Europe in the Spring, and the promotional portrait photo for the book is preserved in the collection. Also worthy of note are four large-format early color prints by innovators Edward Steichen and Harry Warnecke.

The collection, which is still being processed, provides a fascinating glimpse into the high-profile world of the fashionable and famous, from Connecticut to China, to Europe, to Egypt, and to points in between. Memorable among the images are Ambassador Luce being received by Pius XII; the visits of Churchill, John Foster Dulles, and Joe DiMaggio in Italy; a masked ball with Gina Lollobrigida; the Luces entertaining the Nixons in Phoenix; and Mrs. Luce with Bernard Baruch, Cardinal Spellman, NASA astronauts, and a host of others. With its wide array of subjects and documentation of historic figures and events the Clare Boothe Luce collection provides a captivating picture resource.