Hippity-Hoppity Easter Is on Its Way
How Beatrix Potter Hopped Into Our Hearts
An exhibition at the Morgan Library pays tribute to the illustrator’s prowess as a naturalist, storyteller, mycologist, and sheep farmer.
The famed children’s author and illustrator Beatrix Potter lived exactly as one might expect. She reached an international audience from her home in the fairytale landscape of the English Lake District, where she traversed her sheep farm in clogs, penned heartfelt letters to children, and investigated the miniature worlds beneath her feet through a magnifying glass attached to a wooden walking stick. But her oeuvre isn’t limited to books such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1901) or Benjamin Bunny (1903), as the Morgan Library’s Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature exhibition makes exceedingly clear, inviting visitors to gain new appreciation for her enduring stories, steadfast dedication, and endless curiosity.
Beatrix Potter was born in 1866 to a well-off family in London, where the author lived for most of her young life. She had few friends as she navigated the stifling social constraints of upper-class British life and instead found solace in the natural world. Potter owned at least 92 pets over the course of her lifetime, including a pair of salamanders (Sally and Mander), a bat, a frog, at least three lizards, a snake, a duck, mice, a family of snails, and, of course, bunnies (Benjamin and Peter were real rabbits). She intently studied their behavior and sketched them.