| Admin/Biog History | Nicolson spent July 1935 enjoying his first visit to the U.S.A. Travelling with his father (Harold Nicolson), he spent ten days staying with the Lindbergh/Morrow family in Maine before journeying separately to various cities visiting public and private art collections. After returning briefly to Sissinghurst at the beginning of August he travelled to Europe, staying for six weeks in Vienna, learning German and again visiting public and private art collections. He returned to the UK at the beginning of October, before beginning his final year at Oxford mid-month. |
| Description | In which Nicolson visits the U.S.A. for the first time. Writes about staying with the Morrow/Lindburgh family in North Haven; socialising, sightseeing and visiting public and private collections in Boston, Washington, Philadelphia and New York.
Spends six weeks in Europe, staying primarily with an Austrian family in Vienna but also briefly visiting Germany and Budapest. Writes about visiting various public and private collections, in particular studying drawings at the Albertina. Also writes about visiting the opera; learning German with Fraulein Frankel; and socialising with - amongst others - Janet Howe, Peggy Lewin and Liesel Poche. Also writes about the political situation and comments on the rising influence of the Nazi party.
Returns to Oxford and writes about everyday life, including the history he is studying as an undergraduate - in particular the French Revolution; books he is reading; lectures attended; sherry parties; club & society events including the activities of the Florentine club. Many of the entries concern his social life and reference, amongst others, Jeremy Hutchinson, Francis Graham-Harrison, John McNair, John Usborne, Stuart Hampshire, Giles Robertson, Viola Tree, Tom Boase, John Pope-Hennessy ('Botticelli') and Isaiah Berlin ('Shiah'). Also includes regular references to his brother ( Nigel Nicolson), who had just gone up to Oxford as a 'freshman'.
Writes about the Abyssinian crisis and the polictical situation in the UK and in Europe. Also writes about his father (Harold Nicolson).
July
-8th: arrives in New York; meets Miss Shiff [?], his father's' (Harold Nicolson) secretary [A digital copy of this entry can be found below]
-9th: arrives at Deacon Brown's Point; meets Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Elizabeth Cutter Morrow and Dwight Morrow Jnr
-11th: is taken for a ride in Lindbergh's aeroplane; goes surfing
-18th: arrives in Boston
-19th: visits Harvard and the Fogg Museum with Dwight Morrow Jnr
-20th: visits the Boston Art museum; Isabella Stewart Gardner museum; meets Felix Frankfurter
-21st: arrives in Washington; sightseeing with William Neil McGarel Hogg and visits, amongst other places, the Freer Collection
-22nd: visits Mount Vernon House; visits the Diplomatic Gallery of the Capitol and sits in state; travels to Philadelphia
-23rd: visits the Widener Collection at Lynnewood Hall; travels to New York & meets up with his father (Harold Nicolson); goes up the Empire State Building
-24th: visits Wall Street and Harcourt Bruce publishers with his father (Harold Nicolson); visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art; travels to Syosset, Long Island
-25th: travels to New York & meets up with his father (Harold Nicolson); meets Lincoln Kirstein and visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Frick and Lewisohn Collection; describes his emotions when visiting art galleries; visits Harlem
-26th: visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art; sets sail, with his father (Harold Nicolson), on the 'Berengaria' for England
-27th-31st: meets and socialises on board ship with Leslie Howard and family & Learned Hand and family
August
-1st: arrives in London
-2nd: visits an Eve Kirk exhibition at Tooth's Gallery; an exhibition of Italian pictures at Agnew's; an exhibition of Vanessa Bell, Keith Baines and Cezanne at the Lefevre Gallery, and an exhibition of modern pictures at the Leicester Galleries; discusses his father's (Harold Nicolson) plans to write a 'Magnum Opus'; returns to Sissinghurst
-3rd & 6th: describes changes to the 'Big Room' at Sissinghurst; celebrates his 21st birthday
-9th: visits the National Gallery; visits Zwemmer's and buys a landscape for £25
-14th: visits Grandma (Lady Victoria Sackville) at White Lodge
-15th: August: travels to Paris
-16th: arrives in Vienna
-18th: visits the Schonbrunn Palace
-19th: visits the Stephanskirche
-21st: visits the Belvedere Palace
-22nd-24th: visits the Kunsthistorisches Museum; visits the Modern Gallery (adjoining the Baroque in the Belvedere Palace) [A digital copy of the entry for 23 August can be found below]
-25th: visits the Liechtenstein museum
-29th: visits the Albertina museum; attends a meeting of the 'All People's Association' at which Sir Evelyn Wrench gives a speech
-30th: visits the Harrach Gallery
September
-1st: visits the Liechtenstein museum and the Prater
-5th: visits 'the Academy'
-7th: visits an exhibition at the Schonbrunn Palace
-9th: visits the Albertina museum; lunches with Alan Pryce-Jones and Malcolm Bullock; meets Alan Pryce-Jones' family
-11th: travels to Melk with Alan Pryce-Jones, Kenneth Rae and Malcolm Bullock
-12th: visits the Abertina museum
-14th-15th: travels to Budapest; visits the Museum of Fine Art; observes the difference between the men and women sight-seeing alone
-16th-17th: returns to Vienna; visits the Klosterneuberg
-18th: visits a private collection in a house off the Kartnerstrasse
-19th: meets Bruschbeck at the Kunsthistorisches Museum
-20th: visits the Albertina museum
-22-23rd: sightseeing in Salzburg: visits the cathedral, churches and a convent (sketch of barracks on opposite page) [A digital copy of these entries can be found below]
-24-27th: arrives in Munich, stays with the Zwehl family: visits the Alte Pinakotech; the studio of an artist named Maxon; Oktoberfest fair (sketch of Cupid on opposite page)
-28th-29th: spends the weekend walking in the Bavarian mountains
-30th: visits the Neustadt museum; visits an exhibition at the Neue Pinakothek, mentions the immediate impact of the National Socialist German Workers' Party [Nazi Party] on Munich
October
-1st: arrives in Paris
-2nd: buys works by Francis Gruber and Raol Dufy for his 21st birthday
-4th: returns to Sissinghurst
-8th: attends 70th anniversary party of Summer Fields school at Claridge's
-9th: visits Dulwich Picture Gallery; returns to Oxford with Nigel who starts as a 'freshman'
-14th: visits the Ashmolean
-15th: Tom [Boase?] comments that John Pope-Hennessy's viva was 'boring'
-16th: asked to be undergraduate secretary of the Arts Club
-17th: attends a meeting of the Synoptic Society
-19th: reports on his father's (Harold Nicolson) political career; Kenneth Clark gives a paper at the Florentine club entitled 'Florentine painting, 1425-35'
-22nd: visits an exhibition of 'Utrillo's white period' at the Lefevre Gallery; attends Lionel [Brett]'s wedding
-23rd: sees a production of 'Romeo and Juliet' starring Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Edith Evans and Peggy Ashcroft
-29th: attends a party thrown by Count Biéville,with guests including Edith Sitwell, Pavel Tchelitchew and Peter Watson
-31st: visits Christ Church Library
November
-2nd-3rd: takes his cousin, Giles St Aubyn, out for the afternoon from Summerfields; meets and socialises with Curtis Moffat; visits an exhibition of works by the 'Hartford Group'
-5th: watches a Russian film and comments on the politicisation of art
-8th: records that they now have a 'a lovely Florentine book'; comments on the growing acceptability of jazz
-9th: visits Gilbert Spencer at Holliwell Manor and views his frescoes; visits an exhibition of works by 'a man called Huskisson' at Ryman's
-10th: lunches with Eric Gill and others
-12th: meets Cyril Bailey
-13-14th: visits Leicester to help with his father's (Harold Nicolson) election campaign [A digital copy of the entry for 14 November can be found below]
-17th: attends a party at Michael Sadleir's house
-21st: meeting of the Synoptic society at which Mr Causland gives a paper on G.K. Chesterton
-24th: lunches with, amongst others, David Cecil; dines with Mrs Beazley at 100 Hollywell Street
-25th: dines with Count Biéville
-28th: Frank Dobson gives a talk at the Florentine club about the history of sculpture
-29th-30th: his mother and Gwen St Aubyn visit Oxford; visit to Holliwell Manor with Giles St Aubyn
December
-1st: attends a Communist film production in Ruskin College
-3rd: attends T.S. Eliot poetry reading at the English Club and socialises with him afterwards
-7th-8th: visits Robert & Elinor Birley at Charterhouse School; returns to Sissinghurst
-12th: attends two parties with his father (Harold Nicolson) in his Leicester constituency (sketch of Robert Haydon, by David Wilkie, in the National Portrait Gallery Collection on opposite page)
-13th-16th: visits Giles Robertson at his family home in Cambridge; views Robertson's private art collection; visits the Fitzwilliam Museum & various University Colleges; attends a party at Victor and Barbara Rothschild's house; dines at Trinity in the company of A.E. Housman and Lord Rutherford; visits the University Library
-17th: lunches with Raymond Mortimer; visits an exhibition of pictures by André Derain at Agnew's; visits the Chinese exhibition at Burlington House
-18th-21st: writes about the Hoare-Laval pact political crisis and his father's (Harold Nicolson) maiden speech in the House of Commons
-25th: visits Grandma (Lady Victoria Sackville) at White Lodge and is given seven 'trompe l'oeil' paintings, and a jumble of manuscripts and engravings
-27th-28th: visits Swift's Place, bought by Victor Cazalet
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| Image Caption | Journal entry for 8 July concerning Nicolson's first impressions of New York, 1935 |
| Journal entry for 23 August concerning a visit to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 1935 |
| Journal entries for 20-23 September concerning sightseeing in Salzburg, 1935 (2pp) |
| Journal entry for 14 November concerning Harold Nicolson's election campaign, 1935 (2pp) |