Exhibition curated by Tracy Chevalier, our 2016 creative partner
Our creative partner for Charlotte Brontë’s bicentenary year, Tracy Chevalier, presents an exhibition which, through objects and quotations, explores the contrast between Charlotte’s constricted life and her huge ambition. At Haworth she and her sisters lived in confined spaces, sharing beds and all working together in one room. They created miniature books and magazines, and Charlotte ruined her eyesight by writing, drawing and painting on such a small scale. Despite being so contained, however, she also had big ideas about the kind of life she wanted and the contribution she expected to make to literature.
Highlights include Charlotte’s child-size clothes, tiny books and paintings she made, a scrap from a dress she wore to an important London dinner party, and a moving love letter loaned by the British Library especially for the bicentenary. Quotes from Charlotte’s letters and writings are projected onto the walls to demonstrate the scale of her hopes and dreams.
Contemporary art installations are also displayed throughout the Parsonage, with artists Ligia Bouton, Serena Partridge, Tamar Stone and The Knitting Witch responding to the idea of the miniature. These include a small bed embroidered with words by and about all of the Brontës, as well as a Knitted Jane Eyre!
Exhibition is free with admission to the Museum.
