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Eve Babitz papers

Manuscripts

Eve Babitz papers

Description: Materials documenting the life and career of writer and artist Eve Babitz. Writings includes drafts and galleys of her books Slow Days, Fast Company (1977), Sex and Rage: Advice to Young Ladies Eager for a Good Time (1979), L.A. Woman (1982), Black Swans (1993), and Two By Two: Tango, Two-Step, and the L.A. Night (1999); as well as articles and stories; screenplays; unpublished manuscripts; and collected clippings and publications. The Personal series includes incoming and outgoing correspondence with friends, family, and publishing contacts; biographical and family items; and Babitz's notebooks and datebooks. Photographs are of Babitz, her friends and family, and the Los Angeles area, including hundreds she took with a Brownie camera documenting her friends and social sphere from 1968 to 1971. Artwork primarily consists of collages Babitz made between 1967 and1970, some commissioned for publication or album artwork. Collage subjects include musician friends and acquaintances including Jim Morrison, Mick Jagger, Stephen Stills, Ginger Baker, and Noel Harrison; commissioned work featuring Marilyn Monroe and Liza Minnelli; and pastoral and abstract scenes. There are also drawings and paintings dating from the early to mid-1960s.
Type: Manuscripts

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Date

1917-2016

Call number

mssBabitz

Creator

Babitz, Eve(Opens in new tab)

Provenance

Purchased from Eve Babitz through Glenn Horowitz Bookseller with support from Steve Martin and Anne Stringfield, November 2021.

gift of Mirandi Babitz, December 2024.

Restrictions

Open for use by qualified researchers and by appointment. Please contact Reader Services at the Huntington Library for more information.

SEALED: Box 19: Brian G. Hutton correspondence and Eve Babitz 1969-1970 personal journal closed until January 1, 2040, at family's request.

NOT AVAILABLE: Box 18: Audiovisual materials unavailable until reformatted.

Rights

The literary copyright of materials by Eve Babitz is held by the Estate of Eve Babitz. Anyone wishing to quote from or publish any photographs or manuscript material by Eve Babitz must contact: Erica Spellman Silverman, Trident Media Group, LLC, 355 Lexington Ave, Floor 12, New York, NY 10017.

Associated people

Cornell, Joseph.

Heller, Joseph.

Find out more

View in the Library catalog(Opens in new tab)

View in the Online Archive of California(Opens in new tab)

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Eve Babitz, family, and art
Manuscripts
Photographs of Eve Babitz from childhood through the 2000s, her family, and artwork. Artwork photographs include several prints of a Brian Jones collage, and a series of slides taken by Paul Ruscha.
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Artwork
Manuscripts
Primarily collages Babitz made between 1967 and 1970, using magazine clippings, paper, and cardboard. Collage subjects include musician friends and acquaintances including Jim Morrison, Mick Jagger, Stephen Stills, Ginger Baker, and Noel Harrison; commissioned work featuring Marilyn Monroe and Liza Minnelli; and pastoral and abstract scenes. There is also a 1917 watercolor by Babitz family friend Kate Steinitz, and an undated drawing by Eve Babitz's mother, Mae Babitz.
mssBabitz
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Photographs
Manuscripts
Photographs and negatives of Eve Babitz, her family and friends, and the Los Angeles area, including hundreds taken by Babitz of friends and gatherings during the years 1969-1972. Photo subjects from this time include Jackson Browne, the Byrds, Black Oak Arkansas, Glenn Frey, Steve Martin, Linda Ronstadt, Gram Parsons (38 images), and Dan Wakefield; and several Los Angeles locations including Echo Park and the Griffith Observatory. There are also photos from the late 1980s of friends and gatherings and a trip to Miami. Family photographs include Eve Babitz from childhood to the 2000s, her cats, her parents Sol and Mae Babitz, sister Mirandi Babitz, and their family home. Scrapbooks and photo albums feature snapshots of friends and family, with one album dedicated to the Slow Days, Fast Company book release party in 1977. There is also significant material related to dance in Los Angeles, which appears to be related to Babitz's book Two by Two: Tango, Two-Step, and the L.A. Night.
mssBabitz
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I used to be charming : the rest of Eve Babitz
Rare Books
With Eve's Hollywood Eve Babitz lit up the scene in 1974. The books that followed, among them Slow Days, Fast Company and Sex and Rage, have seduced generations of readers with their unfailing wit and impossible glamour. What is less well known is that Babitz was a working journalist for the better part of three decades, writing for the likes of Rolling Stone, Vogue, and Esquire, as well as for off-the-beaten-path periodicals like Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing and Francis Ford Coppola's short-lived City. Whether profiling Hollywood darlings, getting to the bottom of health crazes like yoga and acupuncture, remembering friends and lovers from her days hobnobbing with rock stars at the Troubadour and art stars at the Ferus Gallery, or writing about her beloved, misunderstood hometown, Los Angeles, Babitz approaches every assignment with an energy and verve that is all her own. I Used to Be Charming gathers nearly fifty pieces written between 1975 and 1997, including the full text of Babitz's wry book-length investigation into the pioneering lifestyle brand Fiorucci. The title essay, published here for the first time, recounts the accident that came close to killing her in 1996; it reveals an uncharacteristically vulnerable yet never less than utterly charming Babitz.
653856
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Eve Babitz collage reproductions
Visual Materials
This collection contains four poster reproductions of Eve Babitz collages, created and gifted to artist Ed Ruscha by Babitz. The posters depict musicians George Harrison and the individual members of the band Cream, including Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker.
priBabitz
Image not available
Eve Babitz collage reproductions
Visual Materials
This collection contains four poster reproductions of Eve Babitz collages, created and gifted to artist Ed Ruscha by Babitz. The posters depict musicians George Harrison and the individual members of the band Cream, including Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker.
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