A Visit to the Morgan Library and Exhibit
Last week my Journal Study Group met Gwyneth Leech at her gallery exhibit entitled "Hypergraphia" and visited the Diary Exhibit at the Morgan Library. Pat already posted some information about our day on her blog.
I love books, notebooks, journals, log books, and diaries and I'm almost embarassed by the number I created over many years. It was a thrill to look at actual diaries from the Morgan collection, especially several that contained sketches and watercolor paintings. The Morgan website has podcasts and readings of many of the diaries.
Illustrated Diary #1: The peasant woman that I painted below was sketched from an anonymous diary entitled "Focus on Fashion: A Lady's Travelogue (1869)." I would love to see some of the other pages to see more fashions and her biting descriptions.
Illustrated Diary #2: My real favorite, however, was one kept by Fanny Tremlow. This photo from her diary was downloaded from this website.
Illustrated memoir by Fanny Twemlow (1881-1989), a British woman in a World War II internment camp in France, 1940-41. Gift of Julia P. Wightman, 2006.
In December 1940, the German army carried out a swooping raid throughout Occupied France aimed at rounding up any woman found in possession of British papers. The subsequent internment of some 4000 women was carried out during one of the coldest winters in living memory. English spinster, Miss Fanny Twemlow, was among those unlucky enough to end up in the infamous camp, Frontstalag 142, on the French-German border. Throughout her captivity, she was determined to secretly make sketches of camp life as well as keep a diary.
FRONTSTALAG 142: The Internment diary of an English Lady, by Katherine Lack will soon be published.
Comments
You had a perfect day and your drawings are delightful, as usual! The Lady's travelogue and quotes are lovely and would be fascinating to read and draw.
I visited the Morgan Library and loved it !!!! (there was a Babar the Elephant exhibition on then)
I also love journals that have been illustrated. I bought a wonderful book titled "Ïllustrated letters: Artists and Writers Correspond" which is wonderful to look through. It inspires me to do a little drawing on letters that I send .
Posted by: Alissa | March 15, 2011 3:03 PM
Love the lady especially the pointy hat. Very quaint. In answer to use of a sharpie, no. I use the 01 micron for all my zentangles and it worked wonderfully on the tiles. Just needs a little more time to dry. P.S. I love your hand made journals and your dying is fab!
Posted by: Deborah Goldman | March 16, 2011 12:29 PM
Very nice illustration Shirley =) And I like the sketch from the diary, the lines are so flowy and natural
Posted by: Alex Tan | March 17, 2011 6:02 AM
Oh my, I am so overwhelmed by your site and all the connections on just this one posting! Thank you for the peek into these parts of New York that I would otherwise not see. What a group of talented women!
Posted by: Sandra Torguson | March 17, 2011 10:37 AM
I loved this post! I love journals like this and your post was enthralling, making me want to see more of it! I look forward to reading Katherine Lack's, if I can get my hands on it! Thanks for that link. I've bookmarked it so I can go back to read it when I have some time. Your second sketch is just phenomenal!
Posted by: raena | March 18, 2011 12:41 PM
Just realized my mistake when I went to the site to look around! She certainly was talented and had some great sketches!
Posted by: raena | March 18, 2011 1:24 PM
What a wonderful day! And OH how I'd love to see that show...
Posted by: Cathy Johnson (Kate) | March 18, 2011 1:34 PM
I've been sitting here for at least 30 minutes in utter awe & amazement...now I don't even remember how I got here in the first place. What an absolutely unbelievable body of work!!! I bookmarked your site and the EDM challenges~just what I needed!!!
Posted by: suzanne Krueger | March 20, 2011 8:54 AM