SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH INSCRIBED TO HIS WIFE with SIGNED VAN VECHTEN PHOTOGRAPH OF HIS WIFE CARLOTTA and SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH OF HIS SON

[September 1933]. Photograph. Near Fine to Fine and an extraordinary collection. Fine 7-3/4" x 9-3/4" studio portrait by Pinchot of New York from a 1933 sitting of the brooding O'Neill INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the four-time Pulitzer Prize Winner to his wife: "To Carlotta--/with all my love,/Sweetheart!/Gene/Feb. '35," the year before O'Neill became the first American playwright to win the Nobel Prize. Signed photographs of O'Neill are distinctly uncommon. This is one of the finest in existence. Accompanied by a 6-1/2" x 8-3/4" Carl Van Vechten photograph of Carlotta O'Neill with Van Vechten's ink stamp identification on the rear and red ink annotations. INSCRIBED and SIGNED on the front of the photograph by Carlotta "To Dorothy & Saxe--/Dearest love/Carlotta 1933." Saxe Cummins was editor to O'Neill and William Faulkner among others. Also included is a scarce 5" x 7-1/2" photograph of Eugene O'Neill, Jr., the playwright's eldest son by his first of three wives, Kathleen Jenkins (O'Neill had one other son, Shane, an emotionally unstable drug addict who committed suicide and a daughter, Oona, who was cut out of O'Neill's life when at the age of 18 she married the 54-year old Charlie Chaplin.). INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the playwright's son to noted collector LaFayette Butler "with gratitude & best wishes." O'Neill's namesake committed suicide in 1950 at the age of 40, likely not very long after signing this photograph and three years before his father's death. This photograph is tipped at the top verso to a board but is otherwise Fine.