William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
Established 1924
Location 2520 Cimarron St, Los Angeles, California 90018
Coordinates 34°01′59″N 118°18′51″W / 34.03303°N 118.31426°W / 34.03303; -118.31426Coordinates: 34°01′59″N 118°18′51″W / 34.03303°N 118.31426°W / 34.03303; -118.31426
Branches N/A
Collection
Size 110,000 (rare books); 22,000 (rare manuscripts) (2007)
Access and use
Circulation Library does not circulate
Other information
Budget US$30,000,000 (total endowment)
Director Barbara Fuchs
Staff 6 (FTE)
Website

Official website

Designated October 9, 1964
Reference no. 28

The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library (Clark Library), one of twelve official libraries at the University of California, Los Angeles, is one of the most comprehensive rare books and manuscripts libraries in the United States, with particular strengths in English literature and history (1641-1800), Oscar Wilde, and fine printing. It is located about ten miles from UCLA, in the West Adams district of Los Angeles, and two miles west of the University of Southern California. It is administered by UCLA's Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies, which offers several prestigious fellowships for graduate and postdoctoral scholars to use the Library's collections.[1] However, any reader with a serious interest in the collection is welcome to study.

The heart of the Clark's academic activity is its core programs, a series of interdisciplinary events developed around a common theme. Core programs may range from three or four consecutive workshops to a series spanning a year or more, with a full complement of symposia, workshops, graduate seminars, and public lectures. The core programs are organized each year by the current Clark Professor or Professors, who are encouraged to design programs that will lead to publication in the Center/Clark series (published by the University of Toronto Press).[2]

History

William Andrews Clark, Sr. (1839-1925)

The library and its collections were built by William Andrews Clark, Jr., in memoriam of his father, U.S. Senator William Andrews Clark, Sr. who amassed a mining fortune in Montana, Arizona, and Nevada. Clark Jr., a prominent collector and philanthropist, originally had a mansion at the corner of Adams Boulevard and Cimarron, but the structure was demolished.[3] The current library, designed by architect Robert D. Farquhar, was constructed from 1924 to 1926 on the same site. After its completion, Clark Jr. announced his intent to donate the collection (then around 13,000 books),[4] the buildings, and the square-block property to the Southern Branch of the University of California. The deed, along with a $1.5 million endowment,[5] was transferred upon his death in 1934. It was UCLA's first major bequest, and still one of the most generous in the university's history.[6] In 2009, nuclear physicist Paul Chrzanowski donated his collection of 72 Shakespeare books, published between 1479 and 1731, to the Clark Library.[7]

Collections

John Dryden, 1631-1700

The early 20th century ushered in a heyday of American book collecting. William Andrews Clark, Jr., along with other moneyed bibliophiles such as J. Paul Getty, Henry E. Huntington and Henry Clay Folger, first began forming his library during this period.

Initially, Clark collected a broad array of English imprints. His library included the four Shakespeare folios; important editions of Chaucer, Ben Jonson, Byron, Dickens, and Robert Louis Stevenson; works illustrated by George Cruikshank and William Blake; French literature from Pierre de Ronsard to Émile Zola; autograph letters and manuscripts by authors, statesmen, and musicians; and materials relating to the exploration of the American West. In time, Clark began to concentrate his collecting on English literature of the 17th and 18th centuries, particularly in the Restoration, which defines the strengths of the Clark Library today. Eventually, Clark also developed a large collection of Oscar Wilde books and manuscripts.

Clark also took an interest in fine printing, which is represented by complete runs of the books printed by the Kelmscott Press and Doves Press, the two greatest influences on the revival of printing in England at the turn of the 20th century.[8] The library also has a substantial collection of American fine presses in the Arts and Crafts Movement, particularly Californian printers, as well as the library and papers of printer and sculptor Eric Gill and Los Angeles artist Paul Landacre. The library continues to collect in this field.

As of 2006, the collection contains over 110,000 rare books and 22,000 manuscripts, in addition to an extensive reference collection of modern books, periodicals and microfilm.[9]

17th and 18th centuries

The Clark Library is one of the most extensive for British literature and history from the English Civil War through the reign of George II (1641-1761).[10] Many of its collections are only rivaled by the British Library, especially its literary collections, which include literary giants John Dryden, John Milton, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Henry Fielding, and Aphra Behn. The Clark Library also has substantial collections of music books and songs, scores, and musicology printed before 1750; ballad and comic operas; the edited works of Purcell, Handel, and their contemporaries in England; and a choice collection of manuscript anthems, hymns, and incidental music assembled by Theodore Finney.

Among its most valuable collections are the scientific works of Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Edmond Halley, John Evelyn, and Sir Kenelm Digby. The Library also holds theological and philosophical collections of Thomas Cartwright, Protestant theology, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and David Hume.

Oscar Wilde Collection

Perhaps the Library's most valuable and extensive collection is the work by and relating to Oscar Wilde. It is considered the most comprehensive collection of its kind in the world.[11] Clark originally purchased Wilde manuscripts from Wilde's son, Vyvyan Holland, among others. Today, the collection includes photographs, original portraits, caricatures, playbills, and news cuttings. Most of the important Wilde studies in recent years have drawn heavily upon the Clark's resources. The Clark has also taken to collecting books and manuscripts of Wilde's literary circle and the decadent and modernist movements of the 1890s, including the most important editions of William Butler Yeats and many others.

Fellowships

Clark Library logo

Several types of fellowships are offered for graduate and postdoctoral scholars to study at the Clark Library. Among the most prestigious are the Ahmanson-Getty Fellowship, Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship, Clark Dissertation Fellowship, Predoctoral Fellowship, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies /Clark Fellowship, Kanner Fellowship in British Studies, Clark Short-Term Fellowship, and Clark-Huntington Bibliographical Fellowship.

All fellowships are administered by UCLA's Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies. Each fellowship varies in stipend, duration, and qualification. All of the fellowships, however, require that the recipient make use of the Clark Library's collections.[12]

Architecture

The library is set on a walled block in the West Adams neighborhood near Downtown. A grandly conceived garden pavilion, the two-story building is lavishly detailed inside and out. Designed by Robert D. Farquhar, one of California’s most eminent romantic architects, its paired cubic reading rooms resemble the Villa Lante, a dual Italian Renaissance composition attributed to Vignola. In keeping with the collection, its brick and stone facades overlay an English baroque mode similar that employed by Wren at Hampton Court. The brickwork is very fine, subtly dappled in five colors and set in lavender-tinted mortar.

The Library occupies the former yard of a large house built in the early 20th Century. Unusual for its time, the property was surrounded by a brick wall. This feature may have been part of the property’s appeal for Clark who, after buying it, bought and removed eleven neighboring houses, extended the wall around the entire block, and engaged landscape architect, Ralph D. Cornell to develop plans for a public park. That project was never completed. Willed to UCLA in 1934 with the stipulation that no structure ever rise within one hundred feet of the library, the building stood for the next sixty years in an unfinished landscape gradually emptied by the removal of the house and an observatory.

In 1988, the Los Angeles architectural firm of Barton Phelps & Associates (Barton Phelps,FAIA, 1946 - ) was commissioned to prepare a master plan for the site. In response to the restrictions of Clark’s gift, it proposes a major research facility surrounding a below-grade garden at its center. Initial funding from the Getty and Ahmanson Trusts was conveyed to the library by former UCLA Chancellor, Dr. Franklin Murphy.

The first of phase construction accommodates library support facilities in a linear building conceived as a two-story, extendable wall. Its four modules are separated by courtyards to form what has been called a range, an 18th-century term borrowed from Jefferson's plan for the University of Virginia. The North Range stretches two hundred and seventy feet along the north side of the block. It houses editorial offices, conference and food service facilities, and guestrooms. It leaves the center of the site open and, in its form and color, it relates more closely to the red brick fence than to the library.

Images of Clark Library

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies William Andrews Clark Memorial Library". UCLA Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies. Retrieved 2007-04-28.
  2. ↑ "Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies William Andrews Clark Memorial Library". William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. Retrieved 2007-04-12.
  3. ↑ "About the Clark Library". William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. Retrieved 2007-04-28.
  4. ↑ Sam Allen (July 15, 2010), A charming hideaway for rare-book lovers Los Angeles Times.
  5. ↑ Sam Allen (July 15, 2010), A charming hideaway for rare-book lovers Los Angeles Times.
  6. ↑ "TOP 10 GIFTS". UCLA Today. Retrieved 2007-04-28.
  7. ↑ Sam Allen (July 15, 2010), A charming hideaway for rare-book lovers Los Angeles Times.
  8. ↑ "Fine Printing and Graphic Arts". William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. Retrieved 2007-04-28.
  9. ↑ "Professional Position Posting". lisjobs.com. Retrieved 2007-04-28.
  10. ↑ "The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries". William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. Retrieved 2007-04-28.
  11. ↑ "Oscar Wilde and the 1890s". William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. Retrieved 2007-04-12.
  12. ↑ "Fellowships and Other Support Programs". UCLA Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies. Retrieved 2007-04-12.
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