TENNANT, Stephen (1906-1987)
41 autograph letters signed (‘Stephen’ or ‘S’) to Ruth Ford and Zachary Scott, Wilsford Manor, 17 March 1958 – April 1962 and n.d. 108 pages in total, various sizes, two of the letters on notecards, one enclosing a page of autograph poetry, one enclosing a photograph, six of the letters illustrated with sketches. 39 original envelopes.
Letters from Stephen Tennant, brightest of the Bright Young Things – named ‘the last professional beauty’ by Osbert Sitwell – to the American actors, husband and wife Zachary Scott and Ruth Ford. Spanning a four-year period – written in jewel-coloured inks in a languid scrawl, some illustrated with lively sketches – Tennant’s letters are all sent from Wilsford Manor, the childhood home to which he retreated for good in the late 1940s: the printed notepaper with an address on New York’s Upper East Side on which many of the letters are written seems to be an intentional red herring, showing a characteristic – rather fabulous – disdain for reality. More than half of Tennant’s letters discuss his plays, poetry or paintings: he makes repeated reference – in letters that are often sent on consecutive days, occasionally the very same day – to works recently completed or putative new commissions, especially those in which he envisages Ruth and Zachary starring, and requests that both might read his plays; in one instance, he encloses a page of autograph poetry, while elsewhere he lists his works completed to date. Tennant professes his love for New York, sending a series of missives rhapsodising on the snowfall in the city, and writes at length about his desire to return to America: to lecture on his old friend Willa Cather, to sell his paintings, or to present his plays to an understanding audience (‘America is more receptive & welcoming to new thought than any other country now’). Playful and expansive in tone, he curates extravagant, adventurous travel itineraries for trips he imagines making, perhaps with Ruth and Zachary in tow: to the south of France, to Samoa, to the Mojave Desert, Taormina or Tangiers. Occasionally, the façade slips: 'I think I can write dialogue Zachary […] but I am shy & reclusive, like my beloved Emily Dickinson […] I've had a bad breakdown – 3⁄4 months – but I'm quite alright now’. Elsewhere, references to past glories and acquaintances add a touch of pathos: he reports that ‘Laurence Whistler has asked for my Rex Whistler letters for his book on R’, for example, but such statements as ‘you will say I'm old fashioned – but old fashioned things come back into fashion’ or ‘I am a beautiful dancer’ might just as easily be read as wry in-jokes designed to amuse the letters’ recipients.
After the Second World War, Stephen Tennant retreated for good to Wilsford Manor, the Arts and Crafts mansion at which he had hosted glittering parties for fellow socialites, friends and lovers including Cecil Beaton, Rex Whistler, Osbert Sitwell and Siegfried Sassoon in the Twenties and Thirties. He lay in bed for much of the time, writing letters, emerging in the evenings – latterly, with long, hennaed hair and grossly overweight, but beautifully dressed – to hold court to guests from David Hockney to Kenneth Anger.
[offered with:] three catalogues for exhibitions of Stephen Tennants works: 'Paintings and Fantasies', Rome, 1956 (two copies; one inscribed by Tennant for the Fords); and 'Paintings and Drawings of Hawaii and Mexico', London, 1956.
$12,500.00