Correspondence
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Williams, Esther Baldwin, 1867-1964
setName: label: See more items in
content: Esther Baldwin Williams and Esther Williams papers
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 0.7 Linear Feet (Boxes 1-2)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1887-1961
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.willesth, Series 3
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
arrangement: label: Arrangement note
content: The correspondence of Esther Baldwin Williams and Esther Williams is arranged together by name of correspondent.
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: This series has been scanned in its entirety.
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents note
content: Incoming and outgoing correspondence is found for both women, however, the majority of correspondence is that of Ester Williams. Esther Williams wrote many letters to her parents while she was in Paris. She discusses her painting, her thoughts about life, impressions of current events, and her daily activities. There is also routine business correspondence with galleries, institutions, and associations, including the Rockport Art Association, concerning sales, loans, and commissions. Notable correspondents found among Esther Williams letters are Louis Eilshemius, Furman J. Finck, and Leon Kroll.

Esther Baldwin Williams was a friend and patron of Maurice Prendergast and her correspondence contains a significant number of letters written to her by Prendergast. He writes about his health, including his loss of hearing in 1905, the "eye strain" which forced him to give up painting that same year, and his illness in Venice in 1911. He also writes about sales of his paintings to Williams, exhibitions of his work, of mutual friends Charles Prendergast, Arthur B. Davies, and William Glackens, the influence of Cézanne on his work, of his reaction to French paintings in Paris in 1907, and of his reaction to a jury's rejection of a Luks painting in 1904 and of the superiority of the Luks painting over a Sargent painting that was accepted by the jury for exhibition. There are also letters to Esther Williams from other friends.