Beatrix Potter

DRAWN TO NATURE

EDITED BY ANNEMARIE BILCLOUGH CONTRIBUTIONS BY RICHARD FORTEY, SARA GLENN, EMMA LAWS, LIZ HUNTER MACFARLANE, JAMES REBANKS, AND LUCY SHAW

This beautiful book explores the beloved writer’s achievements as a storyteller, artist, and naturalist.

Beatrix Potter’s universe of characters—Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin, Jemima Puddleduck—have delighted audiences for over a century. A creative pioneer and determined entrepreneur, she combined scientific observation with imaginative storytelling to create some of the world’s best-loved children’s books. This volume showcases Potter’s charming characters against the backdrop of her exquisite botanical drawings, humorous illustrated letters to friends, Lake District landscapes, and rarely seen photographs.

Beatrix Potter’s endearingly hand-painted world of animals and gardens made her one of the most celebrated children’s book authors of all time, yet this is but one facet of her creative life. Drawn to the picturesque English countryside after a London childhood, Potter had a passion for nature that influenced her many achievements as a naturalist, artist, storyteller, and later in life as a fervent conservationist and “gentlewoman” farmer. This book sheds light upon the connections between her art, entrepreneurial success, and legacy in preservation.

Annemarie Bilclough is curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Richard Fortey is an acclaimed natural historian. Sara Glenn is curator for the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Beatrix Potter Collection. Emma Laws is the Frederick Warne Curator of Children’s Literature, Word & Image at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Liz Hunter MacFarlane is the Project Curator in charge of the National Trust’s Beatrix Potter Collection. James Rebanks is author of the best-selling memoir The Shepherd’s Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape. Lucy Shaw is a composer who collaborates on live events at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

ART

216 pages, 8K x 9R” 200 color photographs HC: 978-0-8478-7143-8 $45.00 Can: $60.00 February 15, 2022 Rights: US/Canada RIZZOLI ELECTA Tom Kitten

‘The Tale of Tom Kitten’ is about good manners, or rather, a lack of them. Tom and his sisters Mittens and Moppet get up to all sorts of trouble, upsetting their mother Tabitha Twitchit by discarding their ‘elegant’ but ‘uncomfortable’ clothes. Potter modelled Tom’s movements on a tabby kitten she borrowed, which she described as a ‘fearful pickle’.8 Irises, azaleas and St John’s Wort crowd into the garden illustrations. At the time Potter was enjoying planning the garden at Hill Top, ‘a case of the survival of the fitest [sic]’9 in its haphazard mix of traditional flowers, herbs, fruit and vegetables.

162, 163. The Tale of Tom Kitten artwork, July 1906–June 1907 Watercolour and ink over pencil on paper National Trust, 243332, 243328

190

DRAWN FROM NATURE

pseudonyms for critical comment (hers was ‘Bunny’). A drawing of a garden in Tenby (no.27), which partly inspired the one visited by Peter Rabbit, attracted the following observations from members calling themselves ‘Sphinx’ and ‘Stuffed Monkey: ‘Very well done. I think the outline of the cat is too sharply defined it does not look fluffy enough’; ‘Charming colouring – but overworked.’64

Potter’s various activities and visits to museums and art galleries channelled her curiosity and creativity, as well as alleviating the boredom of a life of imposed leisure. A journal entry made as she approached the age of 18 reveals a sense of anxiety about an uncertain future.65 Despite her dislike of formal lessons, Potter’s journal suggests that, for her, drawing was a form of therapy:

I cannot rest, I must draw, however poor the result, and when I have a bad time come over me it is a stronger desire than ever, and settles on the queerest things...Last time, in the middle of September, I caught myself in the back yard making a careful and admiring copy of the swill bucket, and the laugh it gave me brought me round.66

38

TOWN AND COUNTRY

191