David Trinidad's phenomenal essay "On the Road with Sylvia and Ted: Plath and Hughes's 1959 Trip Across America" was one of the best pieces I had to pleasure to read and work on when I was co-editor of Plath Profiles. And it in part led me to start thinking about Sylvia Plath picture postcards.
I got to see, as part of the Letters of Sylvia Plath project, as many postcards as was possible. And so now that her texts are available, I thought I might write a post that might become a series which looks at the picture side of the postcards Plath sent.
The idea came to me in June 2012, the year after publishing David's essay, when I did a little research into the postcard Plath sent to J. Mallory Wober circa 17 November 1955 of Henri Rousseau's The Sleeping Gypsy. The letter is printed in Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 1, pp 1011-12.
The original painting is held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Plath visited the MoMA several times on various visits to New York City and during the autumn and winter of 1954-1955 made trips to the city with Richard Sassoon. The painting was exhibited from 19 October 1954 to 23 January 1955 as part of the "XXVth Anniversary Exhibitions: Paintings". According to her pocket calendar, Plath visited the Museum of Modern Art on 24 January 1955, the day after the exhibit closed! It could be that she purchased the postcard at that time. But she also visited in June 1953 and April 1954, and it is possible the painting was on general view.
All links accessed 2 June 2012 and 10 January 2019.
I got to see, as part of the Letters of Sylvia Plath project, as many postcards as was possible. And so now that her texts are available, I thought I might write a post that might become a series which looks at the picture side of the postcards Plath sent.
The idea came to me in June 2012, the year after publishing David's essay, when I did a little research into the postcard Plath sent to J. Mallory Wober circa 17 November 1955 of Henri Rousseau's The Sleeping Gypsy. The letter is printed in Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 1, pp 1011-12.
The original painting is held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Plath visited the MoMA several times on various visits to New York City and during the autumn and winter of 1954-1955 made trips to the city with Richard Sassoon. The painting was exhibited from 19 October 1954 to 23 January 1955 as part of the "XXVth Anniversary Exhibitions: Paintings". According to her pocket calendar, Plath visited the Museum of Modern Art on 24 January 1955, the day after the exhibit closed! It could be that she purchased the postcard at that time. But she also visited in June 1953 and April 1954, and it is possible the painting was on general view.
All links accessed 2 June 2012 and 10 January 2019.
Ooooohhhh, I would love to see this series!
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