PLEASE JOIN US FOR A FIELD TRIP TO THE WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK LIBRARY IN WEST ADAMS
Located in the historic West Adams district, the Clark Library was built by the wealthy philanthropist and antiquarian book and fine press collector William Andrews Clark, Jr. in 1926. The library, which specializes the British literature of the 17th and 18th centuries and the world's most comprehensive collection of books, manuscripts, and ephemera related to Oscar Wilde, currently houses more than 110,000 books and 22,000 manuscripts. The building and gardens were designed by architect Robert D. Farquhar. Upon Clark's death in 1934, the library was donated to the University of California at Los Angeles, which still maintains the collection. In 2015, the library was closed for renovations and retrofitting and was only reopened in 2018, a project which won a prestigious Preservation Design Award last year.
The Clark Library has rightly be called "the greatest unknown literary treasure in Los Angeles." Our field trip will include a tour of the restored library and a special exhibit of the work of Eric Gill, a well-known Arts and Crafts printer, sculptor and associate of William Morris, in addition to other selected treasures.
For more information about the Clark Library, visit their website: www.clarklibrary.ucla.edu or on Facebook (clark library/ucla). Photos of the restored library have been posted on YouTube.