The National Art Library holds many remarkable manuscripts and personal documents, including some from the culture’s greatest creative minds, such as Leonardo da Vinci and Charles Dickens. However, there is also much pleasure and insight to be gained from the works of those who were not so celebrated, and we have recently received a generous donation of a set of richly illustrated and highly unusual diaries created by one such figure.
Maud Berkeley (1859-1949) had a privileged and seemingly uneventful childhood and adolescence as an only child in York until her parents retired to the Isle of Wight in 1882, when Maud was 23. At this point she began to keep a diary recording her social life on the island, almost entirely pictorially. Sketching in pen and ink, watercolours and pastels, she records tea parties, tennis tournaments and dances with a lightly satirical eye.
The text is almost unnecessary and records the bare facts of each day, while the accomplished images are gently mocking of her family, friends and self. There is a strong impression of this regular creative output being of vital importance to Maud, and of the diaries acting as instruments of self-expression in a world where her opportunities are limited. The diaries showcase very clearly the power of creativity to transform lives, which can be seen throughout the galleries and stores of the V&A.
Her art also seems to give her an opportunity to question the place of women in her society in ways that she doesn’t express verbally. This is most noticeable in her habit of drawing male figures very much larger than herself and her female friends, something very clearly shown in the illustration of a tennis lesson.
The diaries are an extraordinary record of the life of an artist whose work was clearly vitally important to her, but who did not share it. They have remained in her family through several generations and so have been kept safe where many similar documents are lost. They have now been added to the library’s holdings and are available to view in our South Kensington reading rooms, permanently preserved to bring pleasure and understanding to future generations.
