Flavorwire

Tomorrow would have been Sylvia Plath’s 79th birthday, had she not committed suicide at age 30. Although the literary legend is best known for her semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar and the posthumously published collection of poetry Ariel, as her daughter Freida Hughes explains, “her passion for art permeated her short life.” After abandoning her vibrant, complex paintings made during her years as an art student for literature, Plath continued to draw compulsively and illustrate her writing, deriving pleasure and inspiration from the craft.

Now for the first time, 44 pen and ink drawings by Plath will be on view at the Mayor Gallery in London, November 2 through December 16. Among her subjects: a kiosk near the Louvre, huts of Cambridge, views of the Spanish countryside, and Parisian streets, as well as a few items intimately linked to her literary work, like a pair of patent leather shoes entitled The Bell Jar that she loving described in her novel of the same name. See a selection of the drawings from the Sylvia Plath: Her Drawings and Dadamaino: Volumes, spotted via Dangerous Minds, in our gallery.

Boat of Rock Harbour, Cap Cod. Image credit: Sylvia Plath. Courtesy Mayor Gallery. All images via the Telegraph.