'A Child of the Sun’: Katherine Mansfield’s Last Year"

This intimate, free exhibition explores the last year of Katherine Mansfield’s life through original manuscripts, letters, notebooks, photographs and the personal objects she treasured, including those left to loved ones in her will.

At the centre of the exhibition is her silk Chinese shawl, a massive 2 x 2 metres, which was draped over her coffin during her funeral in Fontainebleau, France, just over one-hundred years ago.

When Katherine Mansfield ecstatically proclaimed in her notebook that she wanted to be ‘a child of sun’, the tuberculosis that would kill her less than a year later was already well advanced. She knew she was dying but resisted the knowledge. Instead, through her reading of works influenced by Eastern mysticism, she experienced a radical transformation that had her imagining new ways to work and live.The exhibition explores the last year of Katherine Mansfield's life and considers her legacy.

This is a collaborative exhibition between the Alexander Turnbull Library at the National Library and Katherine Mansfield House & Garden. It is sponsored by the Turnbull Endowment Trust, the French Embassy in New Zealand and the Katherine Mansfield House & Garden.

You can find out more about ‘A child of the sun’: Katherine Mansfield’s last year' exhibition on the National Library website https://natlib.govt.nz/visiting/wellington/a-child-of-the-sun-katherine-mansfields-last-year