With its proximity to the cultural hub of New York City and its quieter suburban and rural landscapes, Connecticut was fertile ground for artists and writers in the period of Modernist movements between 1913 and 1979. Many of these cultural figures are well known through biographical and critical studies. Creative Places seeks to show how place played a significant role in creative work, and how in turn the artists and writers influenced communities in Connecticut.
Edwin Way Teale
Photography, Journalism/Non-Fiction
1899 – 1980
Edwin Way Teale was one of the best-loved naturalists of his generation. He was also an accomplished photographer who pioneered new techniques for creating close-up images of insects and other living things. Among Teale’s many books are ‘North with the Spring’ (1951), ‘Circle of the Seasons’ (1953), and ‘Wandering Through Winter’ (1965), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize.
- Biography/Description of Work
American naturalist, photographer, and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of many non-fiction books for adults and children. Teale was born in Joliet, Illinois, and spent his boyhood summers at his grandparents’ farm in Indiana. He received a master’s degree in English literature in 1926 from Columbia University, and worked for ‘Popular Science’ magazine as a staff writer until 1941. He began his career as a free-lance writer with ‘The Golden Throng: a Book about Bees.’ By 1951, he was established as a beloved and popular writer on science and nature. In 1959, Edwin Way and Nellie Teale moved away from the New York City area and purchased a 130-acre farm in Hampton, Connecticut. The last ten or more of Teale’s books were written at the farm. Teale described life at the property, named Trail Wood in ‘A Naturalist Buys an Old Farm’ (1974). The property was further described in ‘A Walk through the Year’ (1978). Situated next to the Natchaug State Forest, Trail Wood is now managed as a nature preserve by the Connecticut Audubon Society.
- Sources view
- http://www.ctaudubon.org/center-at-pomfret/trail-wood/ http://www.lib.uconn.edu/about/exhibits/carroll/ewteale/teale.html http://www.in.gov/history/markers/EdwinWTeale.htm
- Associated Resource(s)