FAIRMAN

The University of Wyoming American Heritage Center has mounted a ‘traveling exhibit’ of watercolours and diaries from Kennet Were’s 1868-9 journey across the United States, a long account of which he published in the Gazette (‘Nine Months in the United States’) on his return. Were’s obituary in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association, vol. 48, (1916), p. 54, describes him as one of Sidmouth’s ‘most respected inhabitants’ and ‘the prime mover in movements for the improvement of the resort and a supporter of all good causes’, but does not refer to his artistic activities.

380pp., 4to. Carbon copies on rectos of numbered leaves. Preceded by an eleven-leaf thumb index (not complete). In original brown leather half-binding, marbled boards and endpapers. Internally sound and tight, in heavily-worn binding lacking spine. At the heart of the correspondence are eight letters to the artist with whom Lowenstam is most of all associated, Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema. These date from the 1890s, and are all addressed to 'My dear Tadema'.