Beatrix Potter: The Picture Letters

November 2, 2012 through January 27, 2013
Image of My rabbit Peter is so lazy."

This exhibition tells how a largely self-taught artist and writer used a series of private letters to develop some of the most vividly depicted animal characters in all of children's literature. Beatrix Potter: The Picture Letters brings together for the first time twenty-two letters from important American private holdings as well as from three major institutional collections—the Morgan, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and the Cotsen Children's Library at Princeton University. Illustrated with pen-drawn vignettes, the letters are displayed with more than eighty related items, including printed books, original artwork, manuscripts, and early children's toys and games inspired by Potter's stories.

This exhibition is underwritten by Barbara and James Runde, and by Susan and Peter Solomon and Peter J. Solomon Company, L. P. Major funding is provided by Barbara Hanson Pierce, Michael Francis Hanson, and Robert Hixon Hanson in memory of their mother, Margaret Hixon Hanson. Further generous support is provided by the Caroline Macomber Fund, Rudy and Sara Ruggles, Justin G. Schiller, Ltd., and the Frelinghuysen Foundation.

Sponsored by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Beatrix Potter (1866–1943)
"My rabbit Peter is so lazy."
Autograph letter signed to Noël Moore, 4 February 1895
Gift of Colonel David McC. McKell, 1959; MA 2009.2