Off the record | A child of the sun: Katherine Mansfield’s last year
Fiona Oliver, Exhibition Advisor, writes about Katherine Mansfield's Chinese shawl and celebrating her life with an exhibition at the Library.
‘Being all that I am capable of being ...’
"I want to be all that I am capable of becoming so that I may be — (and here I have stopped and waited and waited and it's no good — there's only one phrase that will do) a child of the sun."
— Katherine Mansfield
When Katherine Mansfield ecstatically proclaimed in her notebook that she wanted to be a ‘child of sun’, the tuberculosis that would kill her less than a year later was already well advanced. She knew she was dying but resisted the knowledge. Instead, through her reading of Eastern mysticism, she experienced a radical transformation that had her imagining new ways to work and live. This spiritual path, for a while, eclipsed even her need to write, feeding her broken body with the promise of a new mode of creativity.
Celebrating Katherine Mansfield’s life
Later this year, the centenary of her death, an exhibition is proposed in the National Library gallery to celebrate the last year of her life, and her legacy. It would include original manuscripts of the stories, letters and journal entries she wrote during this time, as well as some of the objects that surround her death, such as items she gifted to others in her will.
One of these is a Chinese shawl, given to Mansfield by Lady Ottoline Morrell as a Christmas present in 1917, and bequeathed to the artist Anne Estelle Rice, who had painted a striking portrait of her friend. A voluptuous two metres square, made of silk and hand-embroidered with birds and flowers, it covered her coffin as it was lowered into the ground.
‘My lovely gay shawl’ — Katherine Mansfield's shawl, made ca 1900, Artist unknown. Ref: D-014-007). Alexander Turnbull Library.
‘My lovely gay shawl’
The shawl was retrieved from Fontainebleau, France, where she was buried, and has since come to join other objects once treasured by the writer now in the Turnbull's collections.
Remedial conservation work is needed to treat the shawl, which is showing signs of age. Stabilising the deterioration of silk is a complex undertaking, as is detangling the fringe, which has become brittle with time. If this work can be done, it will mean that this important and beautiful object will be displayed to the public for the first time.
Celebrating one hundred years of her creative legacy
If Mansfield had lived beyond her 34 years, what might she have achieved? Until the end, she lived in a state of constant movement, seeking a cure for her disease. In those last months, staying at Gurdjieff's Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in Fontainebleau, her spirit reached for the cosmic vision of eternity she'd glimpsed in the fevered fluctuations of her mind. She found it in death — and if not in new work, then in the legacy of what she had already achieved.
The exhibition, which is yet to be confirmed, is one of a number of events being held worldwide to mark the centenary of Mansfield's death.
Read more about this year’s Centenary event at KM23.co.nz
Thanks to Friends of the Turnbull Library
Thanks to the Friends of the Turnbull Library for permission to republish this article, which was originally published in their Off the Record print publication.
The Friends of the Turnbull Library is a national organisation that supports the work and activities of the Alexander Turnbull Library, they promote public interest in the Library’s collections and supports research and use of its collections.
More information about the Friends of the Turnbull
Our Off the record blog series will republish articles from the Off the Record magazine including stories about new acquisitions, research projects and other news about the Turnbull Library collections.