Casinos, Las Vegas

The photographs contained in this and the following lot are culled from an essay originally intended for LIFE magazine but never published. The photographer, Peter Stackpole and the writer assigned to the story, William Saroyan (1908-1981), were both noted figures on the West Coast between the World Wars. Stackpole, a photojournalist with the eyes of a purist, was a member of the illustrious West Coast photographic association, Group f/64. Saroyan, a native of Fresno, enjoyed much fame in the pre-War years for his irreverent style and brash use of vernacular language, creating characters in his stories with an especially lively appeal. Self-educated, Saroyan began publishing in the mid-1930s. He burst onto the literary scene in the 1930s with his collections of stories, The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934) followed by The Time of Your Life and Inhale and Exhale (1936). Each was exceedingly well received bringing him international fame that would last through the War years.

While Stackpole was documenting the construction of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, he photographed Saroyan on it, beginning their long friendship. Given the attraction of the subject matter of the casinos to both Stackpole and Saroyan, it would seem natural that the two artists would work together on an essay describing and picturing interiors of the gambling havens in Las Vegas. The photographs contained in this lot were given to Saroyan by Stackpole at the time and have remained in the family since the writer's death in 1981. It is unclear whether Saroyan ever created a manuscript for the assignment. No draft for the story has been discovered.