Scope and arrangement
The Ben Edwards designs and papers (1884-1999, bulk dates: 1938-1999) document the American scenic designer and art director's career and personal life with designs, drawings, research files, letters, and other files.
This collection consists mainly of set, lighting, and costume designs from Edwards' prolific career in theatre, film, television, and industrial shows. The designs, which date from 1938 to 1996, are arranged alphabetically by production name, and provide a fairly comprehensive representation of his career. The vast majority of the designs contained here are set designs, though a much smaller number of costume designs and lighting plots are also included. Design formats include pencil drawings, paint elevations, diazotypes, and blueprints. Design files may occasionally contain production photographs, set photographs, research materials, rough preliminary sketches, production materials, fabric swatches, and notes.
An incomplete alphabetical run of Ben Edwards' research files document his process of designing a particular show, by compiling background research files on different places, geographical locations, types of buildings, objects, subjects, time periods, and topics. Topics include farm life and everyday life; activities, such as fire-fighting; religions, such as Budhism; institutions, such as the Army; and events, such as the Civil War, the circus, and bullfights. These files, which he would consult and supplement with each new production, provide valuable insight into Edwards' artistic process. Occasionally research files include a file on a particular production. Research files consist of historic photographs, slides, cartes de visite, and cabinet cards; stereo-graphs, fabric swatches, flooring samples, extracts from books, photocopies of photographs and artwork, design drawings, magazine and newspaper clippings, calendars, guidebooks, maps, travel guides, notes, cards, and letters.
This collection also contains incoming letters from Edwards' friends, colleagues, and family members. These letters discuss personal and family matters as well as professional activities. His correspondents often describe, analyze, critique, or relate information pertaining to upcoming or past theatrical productions on which he or they worked. Early letters from Edwards' family discuss World War II and his military service. This collection includes letters from Hume Cronyn, Maurice Evans, John Gielgud, Leland Hayward, Moss Hart, and Katharine Hepburn. Other personal documents such as military documents, wills, hotel bills, tickets, and clippings; and production materials such as box office statements, budgets, rehearsal schedules, and production inventories, are often included with correspondence.
Other files document Edwards' personal life and career with such items as award nomination certificates, documents pertaining to professional organizations in which he was involved, playbills and programs from productions he designed, artwork by an unidentified artist, passports, identification cards, an address book, an appointment book, and notes and sketches from unidentified productions. There are also two children's scrapbooks with magazine illustrations mounted to fabric pages, one scrapbook of clippings from illustrated newspaper serial stories and pencil sketches, and one scrapbook containing reproductions of famous paintings.
Arrangement
The Ben Edwards designs and papers are divided into the following categories: Designs, Research Files, Letters, and Other Files.