Research Catalog

Donald Oenslager collection of Edward Gordon Craig

Title
Donald Oenslager collection of Edward Gordon Craig, 1898-1967.
Author
Oenslager, Donald, 1902-1975.
Supplementary Content
Finding Aid

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8 Items

StatusContainerFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
Box 1Mixed materialSupervised use *T-Mss 1976-007 Box 1Performing Arts Research Collections - Theatre
Box 2Mixed materialSupervised use *T-Mss 1976-007 Box 2Performing Arts Research Collections - Theatre
Box 3Mixed materialSupervised use *T-Mss 1976-007 Box 3Performing Arts Research Collections - Theatre
Box 4Mixed materialSupervised use *T-Mss 1976-007 Box 4Performing Arts Research Collections - Theatre
Box 5Mixed materialSupervised use *T-Mss 1976-007 Box 5Performing Arts Research Collections - Theatre
Box 6Mixed materialSupervised use *T-Mss 1976-007 Box 6Performing Arts Research Collections - Theatre
Box 7Mixed materialSupervised use *T-Mss 1976-007 Box 7Performing Arts Research Collections - Theatre
Box 8Mixed materialSupervised use *T-Mss 1976-007 Box 8Performing Arts Research Collections - Theatre

Details

Additional Authors
  • Craig, Edward Gordon, 1872-1966.
  • Oenslager, Donald, 1902-1975.
  • Junge, Ewald.
  • Woodward, Daphne.
Description
4.5 linear ft. (8 boxes)
Summary
The Donald Oenslager Collection of Edward Gordon Craig is an artificial collection containing correspondence and artwork created by the noted theatrical designer and graphic artist, Edward Gordon Craig.
Subjects
Genre/Form
  • Artists' proofs.
  • Etchings.
  • Wood-engraving.
Access (note)
  • Collection is open to the public. Library policy on photography and photocopying will apply. Advance notice may be required.
Source (note)
  • Oenslager family
Location of Other Archival Materials (note)
  • Billy Rose Theatre Collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Biography (note)
  • Donald Mitchell Oenslager (1902-1975), an American stage designer and professor, was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on 7 March 1902.
Indexes/Finding Aids (note)
  • Collection guide available in repository and on internet.
Call Number
*T-Mss 1976-007
OCLC
NYPT05-A8
Author
Oenslager, Donald, 1902-1975. Collector
Title
Donald Oenslager collection of Edward Gordon Craig, 1898-1967.
Restricted Access
Collection is open to the public. Library policy on photography and photocopying will apply. Advance notice may be required.
Biography
Donald Mitchell Oenslager (1902-1975), an American stage designer and professor, was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on 7 March 1902. Oenslager began his career in the theater as an actor, working at the Greenwich Village Theatre and the Provincetown Playhouse during the early 1920s. He became interested in theater design after studying in Europe and his first project as a designer was in 1925 for a ballet, Sooner or Later. Oenslager was active as a designer through the 1960s, working on many notable Broadway productions, including Of Mice and Men (1937) and A Majority of One (1959), for which he received a Tony Award. He also served as a faculty member of the Yale School of Drama, teaching design from 1925 until his death in 1975 and publishing many works, including, Scenery Then and Now (1936) and Notes on Scene Painting (1952). Profoundly influenced by the European stage designers, Edward Gordon Craig and Adolphe Appia, Oenslager brought a new emphasis on symbolism over realism to American theater design. Throughout his life, Oenslager built up an extensive collection of materials on both Craig and Appia. Following his death, Oenslager's widow, Mary, gave portions of the Craig material to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, while other parts of the collection went to Yale University.
Edward Gordon Craig (1872-1966), the object of Oenslager's collecting efforts and study, was an actor, artist, theater designer and director. Craig was the second of two children produced from the liaison between the actress Ellen Terry and the architect Edward William Godwin. Exposed to the theater from an early age, Craig had a promising start as an actor, but turned, almost by chance, to a career as a graphic artist and stage designer. Craig first learned various techniques of printmaking around 1893 and he developed an enthusiasm for wood engraving in particular. By the end of 1899 he had engraved nearly 200 blocks, started his own magazine and published a book. His interest in stage design developed almost in tandem with his work as a graphic artist. His 1900 production of Dido and Aeneas was groundbreaking in its approach to stage design. The limitations of the space (the Hampstead Conservatoire) enabled Craig to depart from the elaborate, realist traditions of Victorian stagecraft.
Craig's innovations in lighting and design were admired by critics and radical artists, but often proved impractical to mount in the conservative climate of the English commercial theater. In 1904, Craig moved to Berlin for greater opportunities and it was in Germany that he met the American dancer, Isadora Duncan. Although their affair was relatively brief in duration, Duncan was to be a major influence on Craig. The two shared a belief in a theater in which all of the arts were united. It was his association with Duncan that earned Craig an invitation from Konstantin Stanislavsky to design an influential production of Hamlet for the Moscow Art Theatre in 1912. Following that success, Craig opened his own School for the Art of the Theatre in Florence. Craig continued to live in Italy following the war, but he began to shift away from practice into theory, focusing more of his attention on his writings and wood engravings. By the late 1920s, Craig had executed what would be his final stage designs. Among his wood engravings, Craig's work on the 1929 edition of Hamlet for the Cranach Press is often viewed as one of his greatest accomplishments. Following the end of World War II, Craig settled in the small town of Vence in the south of France, where he completed an autobiography, Index to the Story of My Days (1957), and was visited frequently by his admirers until the time of his death in 1966.
Indexes
Collection guide available in repository and on internet.
Location of Other Archival Materials
Billy Rose Theatre Collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts The Donald Oenslager Papers and Designs, *T-Mss 1996-015.
Connect to:
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Finding Aid
Occupation
Set designers.
Wood-engravers.
Added Author
Craig, Edward Gordon, 1872-1966.
Oenslager, Donald, 1902-1975.
Junge, Ewald.
Woodward, Daphne.
Research Call Number
*T-Mss 1976-007
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