Writings
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Beaux, Cecilia, 1855-1942
setName: label: See more items in
content: Cecilia Beaux papers
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 0.8 Linear Feet (Boxes 2-3, OV 6)
unitdate: label: Date
content: circa 1868-1954
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.beauceci, Series 3
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents note
content: This series includes twelve diaries, notebooks, lectures, essays, poetry, and notes written primarily by Cecilia Beaux, as well as a collection of poems and essays about Cecilia Beaux by various authors including Royal Cortissoz, Richard Watson Gilder, and others. A single sketch on notepaper, which appears to be a study for a portrait, is filed at the end of this series.

Twelve diaries contain entries recording daily activities, including regular notes on her work in the studio and with various sitters for portraits. Some entries are quite brief, and others go on at length about her social life in Europe and America; occasional meetings with prominent figures such as Ida Tarbell, Clarence Day, J. Alden Weir, George Bellows, the Roosevelts, and others; jurying; sitters; women's suffrage; and women in art. 

Lectures and essays on a variety of art subjects are found, usually in the form of annotated typescripts and often in multiple drafts, filed chronologically with their titles or subjects listed in folder headings. The latest draft of each work is filed first in each folder. Beaux writes of her own experiences as an artist, art techniques, education, critical or theoretical ideas, and autobiographical subjects which are unrelated to art. Included are several essays in the form of letters to unidentified recipients, including a detailed account of her time time spent in Malines, Belgium, to paint Cardinal Mercier in 1919. Lengthy prose fragments, many of them autobiographical, are possibly drafts from her 1930 memoir, Background with Figures. 

Poems by Beaux are arranged chronologically, with published poems filed first, along with clippings of their published versions, followed by unpublished poems, titled and untitled. Additional poems are found in her 1868-1884 school notebook. Writings about Cecilia Beaux include poems by Richard Watson Gilder, Adrian Smith, and Adeline Adams; and prose by Royal Cortissoz, Paul Bion, and Eugene Neuhaus. Also found here are corrected galley proofs for an unattributed, published article on American Art that quotes Beaux extensively.

Notebooks include school notes and poetry, expenses, contacts, and what appear to be teaching records. A notebook labeled "Important Data" contains summaries by year of autobiographical data. Other notes include corrections and annotated proofs for Background with Figures, and collection notes by Beaux and others that relate to items in this collection. 

Printed editions of some poems and essays are also found in Printed Materials. Additional autobiographical notes and essays are found in Biographical materials and Correspondence. See series descriptions for further details.