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Kenneth Clark and Julian Huxley Correspondence

 Collection
Identifier: MS 0055
Finding aid note: Stored off-site at the Library Service Center. Please request this material via woodson@rice.edu or call 713-348-2586.

Scope and Contents

Correspondence between Sir Julian Huxley and Sir Kenneth Clark, including letters between their wives Lady Juliette Huxley and Lady Jane Clark, from 1935-1975. Topics include art and artists, African art, British candidates for the Nobel Prize, financing for films of animals, the Zoological Society of London, World War II government projects, Clark’s television series, and personal letters.

Dates

  • Creation: 1935 - 1974

Creator

Access Restriction

This material is open for research.

Stored off-site at the Library Service Center. Please request this material via woodson@rice.edu or call 713-348-2586.

Use Restrictions

Permission to publish materials from the Huxley and Clark correspondence must be obtained from the Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University.

Biographical Note

Julian Sorell Huxley (b. June 22, 1887, d. February 14, 1975) was a lecturer in Zoology at Oxford (1910-1912), Research Associate and later Assistant Professor of Biology at Rice Institute (1913-1916), and fought in World War I before returning to Oxford in 1919, where he conducted the famous axolotl experiments and participated in the university's expedition to Spitsbergen. He became Professor of Zoology at King's College, University of London in 1925, but resigned his position in 1927 to collaborate on what would become The Science of Life with H.G. Wells. He was Fullerian Professor of Physiology in the Royal Institution (1927-1929) while working with Wells, however after 1929 he held no academic position. For ten years he was a private person working to advance his ideas about the biological sciences not as a researcher nor as a teacher, but as a writer on scientific developments and their relationship to contemporary social issues.

From 1935-1942 he served as Secretary of the Zoological Society of London, allowing him to encourage solid research on animal behavior while introducing innovative methods for implementing his vision of the zoo as an educational institution. He continued his work as a writer and lecturer and was known throughout war-time Britain for his participation as a panel member of the BBC Brains Trust program. After World War II he helped form Unesco, serving as the organization’s first Director-General (1946-1948). Here he set out a program cosmopolitan in vision, one concerned with mankind in relationship with nature and with its past, one in which art and science were equally valued. He also began to articulate fully the concerns which would occupy the later years of his life: the relation of overpopulation to poverty and ignorance, the necessity for the conservation of wilderness and wildlife, and the importance of the renunciation of parochial views on religion and politics. The remainder of his life was spent traveling, lecturing and writing in support of the causes to which he was devoted. Throughout his long career, he contributed significantly to the fields of ethology, ecology and cancer research, and acted as a powerful proponent of neo-Darwinism.

Kenneth Mackenzie Clark (b. July 13, 1903, d. May 21, 1983) was a British art historian and authority on Italian Renaissance art. After working, off and on throughout 1925 to 1927, with Bernard Berenson in Florence, Clark served as keeper of the Department of Fine Art at Ashmolean Museum in Oxford (1931-1934), Director of the National Gallery in London (1934-1945), Slade Professor at Oxford (1945-1950, 1961-1962), and Chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain (1955-1960). He is also known for the television series he helped create beginning in 1966, Civilisation, which showed Clark traveling Europe to visit and discuss classic works like Michelangelo’s David and works by Rembrandt, among others.

Extent

0.25 Linear Feet ( (1 box))

1.50 Gigabytes (Nearline access: MS055aip_001 (1.50 GB))

Language of Materials

English

Abstract:

Correspondence between biologist Julian Huxley to art historian Kenneth Clark, including some letters between their wives Juliette Huxley and Jane Clark, regarding art, artists, financing films of animals, Clark’s television series, both Clark’s and Huxley’s books, the Zoological Society of London, British Candidates for the Nobel Prize, WWII government projects, and personal matters. Huxley was Assistant Professor of Biology at Rice Institute (1913-1916).

Acquisition Information

This collection was purchased from a dealer in 1988.

Related Materials

See Julian S. Huxley Papers, MS 50, Woodson Research Center.

Juliette Huxley Papers, MS 474, Woodson Research Center.

Grover Smith Collection, MS 462, Woodson Research Center.

Solly Zuckerman Papers, MS 56, Woodson Research Center.

Huxley letter to G.W.N. Eggers, MS 57, Woodson Research Center.

Huxley letter to Mr. Dyke, MS 58, Woodson Research Center.

Huxley letter to Dawkins, MS 472, Woodson Research Center.

Aldous Huxley letters, MS 498, Woodson Research Center.

Title
Guide to the Kenneth Clark and Julian Huxley Correspondence, 1935-1974
Status
Completed
Date
2004
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
English

Repository Details

Part of the Woodson Research Center, Rice University, Houston, Texas Repository

Contact:
Fondren Library MS-44, Rice University
6100 Main St.
Houston Texas 77005 USA
713-348-2586