| Creator: | Depréaux, Marie Louise (Brent) |
| Title: | Depréaux mss. |
| Collection No.: | LMC 2502 |
| Dates: | 1940-2004 |
| Quantity: | Quantity: 3 Folders |
| Abstract: | The Depréaux mss., circa 1940–2004, consists primarily of a diary written by Marie Louise (Brent) Depréaux in Paris during the German occupation. |
| Location: | Lilly - Short |
| Language: | Materials are in English . |
| Repository: | Lilly Library 1200 E. Seventh St. Bloomington, Indiana 47405-5500 Business Number: 812-855-2452 liblilly@iu.edu URL: https://libraries.indiana.edu/lilly-library |
Marie Louise (Brent) Depréaux, 1878-1963, was a sculptor and diarist. She was born on June 16, 1878 in Columbus, Ohio. After her father, Thomas Lee Brent Jr., died in 1880, her mother, Flora Deshler, moved the family to Germany where Marie Louise grew up. As a young woman, she attended Vassar College and graduated in 1900. Showing artistic talent, she went to study in Paris and worked there for the American Red Cross during World War I. Following the War, she continued to study sculpture under Jean-Antoine Injalbert. She met her husband Albert Depréaux, a military historian, while in France, and they married in 1919. She exhibited her work at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1914, and she submitted her work under her husband's name for several Salons des Artistes Indépendants in the 1920s. The couple lived at the Fondation Thiers mansion on the Rue Bugeaud in Paris for many years. During the German Occupation of Paris during World War II, she kept a diary documenting her experiences. She died in Paris on June 2, 1963.
The Depréaux mss., circa 1940–2004, consists primarily of a diary written by Marie Louise (Brent) Depréaux in Paris during the German occupation. The diary is written in the form of a letter to her two sisters and describes in some detail the living conditions in Paris from 1940 until the city's liberation in 1944. Following the War Marie Louise continued to study sculpture, met and married Albert Depréaux, and the two of them went to live in the Fondation Thiers in on the Rue Bugeaud, Paris. It is from this location that she writes the diary. Accompanying the manuscript are two photographs dating from around the time of the diary. They show the garden described in Depréaux's journal and an interior shot of her at a writing desk.
Also present are a faded photograph of Marie Louise taken in Paris in 1956 when her cousin Carol Tomasic was visiting her there and a computer disk: "Madame Depréaux's Diary, Paris 1940–1944, edited by Emily Macomber and Carol Tomasic." Emily Macomber's introduction and Carol Tomasic's post script, both written in 2004, have been printed out and are in the folder with the disk.
This collection is arranged following original order.
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[Item], Depréaux mss., Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
Gift: 2005