Collection: Papers of Dorothy Whitney Elmhirst
Level: Series
RefNo: DWE/A
Extent: 31 boxes
Title: DWE Arts
Dates: 20th century

Description: Dorothy Elmhirst's correspondence with artists and performers involved with Dartington Hall, between about 1927 and 1968. Letters tend to be personal and reflect her role as a patron of the arts.

Major subjects and correspondents in the Painters and Art Galleries subseries cover artists, art critics, and art galleries. Correspondents include Ben Nicholson; Barbara Hepworth; H S (Jim) Ede of Kettle's Yard (Cambridge); Frances Hodgkins; John Piper; Graham Sutherland; Kenneth Clark; and Angna Enters. There is information about purchases of paintings by Christopher Wood, David Jones, and of purchases of work by other artists.

Material in the Handicrafts subseries includes correspondence with printer Guido Morris; artist and educator Robin Tanner; and textile printer and designer Susan Bosence.

Records also reveal the extent of Dorothy Elmhirst's influence on the Dartington Arts Department in collected minutes and reports, 1942-1950. Information also relates to the wartime Arts Enquiry.

Material in the Music subseries includes correspondence from Benjamin Britten to both Peter Cox and Dorothy Elmhirst, including discussion of Elmgrant funding for productions of Dido and Aeneas, 1951, and Ruth and Boaz (by Lennox Berkeley), 1956; Other music series correspondents include Hans Oppenheim; the Music Theatre Studio; the Dartington Hall Music Group; Nannie Jamieson; Ronald K Anderson; Muriel Taylor; Robert Masters; and Peter Pears. The archive provides details of student concerts and music recital programmes. Also included is Dorothy Elmhirst's music notebook compiled about 1920; as well as reports by Imogen Holst.

In this subseries is the original manuscript of Five Flower Pieces by Benjamin Britten (opus 46); and Truth of All Truths, a music manuscript by Gustav Holst presented to Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst by Imogen Holst.

Dance correspondents and subjects include Uday Shankar; Rudolf Laban, Lisa Ullmann and the Laban Art of Movement Centre; Martha Graham; the Ballet Rambert; Marie Rambert; Louise Soelberg; Margaret Barr and the Dartington School of Dance-Mime; and Jenny Gertz.

Kurt Jooss and the Ballets Jooss were resident at Dartington Hall from 1935. Ballets Jooss correspondence involves Fritz Cohen; Sigurd Leeder; the Jooss-Leeder School of Dance; Beryl de Zoete; and performances at Dartington Hall, and information about the Jooss Ballets American tour in 1938 and 1939. Later records relating to the Ballets Jooss include a transcript of a 1973 interview with Kurt Jooss describing how the Ballet came to Dartington Hall before World War II.

Dorothy Elmhirst was deeply interested in the theatre, and the Arts Drama subseries letters from and about Vera Bowen; Rupert Doone; Ashley Dukes; Reginald Pole; F G Thomas and the rural theatre; puppeteer Richard Odlin; actor, Maurice Browne and Ellen van Volkenburg; and Nellie Cornish.

Dorothy Elmhirst as Elizabeth in a
scene from a rural nativity play, 1931 There is much that relates to Michael Chekhov, including correspondence, class and lecture notes, and other writings. There are Chekhov Theatre Studio prospectuses; student lists; some administrative material; and notes of lessons given at Ridgefield, Connecticut; as well as a subseries of notebooks kept by Dorothy Elmhirst. There are also audio recordings of interviews and lectures given by Michael Chekhov in 1955. There is detailed correspondence between Michael Chekhov and Dorothy Elmhirst while other correspondents include Dorothy's daughter, Beatrice Straight.

Also included in this series is Dorothy Elmhirst's collection of theatre programmes from performances at Dartington and at professional and amateur theatres around Britain, dating from the late 1920s.

RelatedMaterial: Trust Arts records also contain important correspondence between Dorothy Elmhirst and other artists and performers. An unpublished book-length manuscript, 'The Arts at Dartington', by Auberry Pryor, 1963, can be found in DWE/L/E.

See the online catalogue reference DWE/A for item descriptions.