ASSIA WEVILL'S OWN COLLECTION OF SOME 70 PHOTOGRAPHS OF HERSELF ON HER OWN AND WITH OTHERS, AND ONE OF HER FATHER (the last, of Dr Lonya Gutmann as a young man, identified by Ted Hughes on the verso); three of her on her wedding day, May 1947, to John Steele, her first husband; one with him in London in 1947; one as a secretary in Canada in 1950; 19 mostly in Mandalay, Burma, with her third husband David Wevill (married in 1960) and others, in 1958-1960 (in three wearing a sarong), plus 15 contact prints of the couple taken in Burma; three others with David Wevill; one in Trafalgar Square; and, of uncertain date, a series of nine contact prints (?1950s); 'another series of twelve colour contact prints (annotated on the verso by Ted Hughes 'Jackie Bernard's pictures of Assia 1959'); and three others (one possibly early 1960s); two possibly of her second husband Richard Lipsey (married 1952); one cut in half, various sizes from contact prints (each frame counted individually) to 10 x 8 inches, a few creased or with adhesive marks on versos, in a black foolscap document wallet inscribed 'Assia' [1940s-1960s]

The photographs, only one of which is reproduced by Koren and Negev, add greatly to the known images of Assia Wevill, many showing her stunning beauty and allure. She and Ted Hughes had a relationship over six years. His poems Capriccio ('the seven treasures of As[s]ia') are about her, as is 'Dreamers' ('Slightly filthy with erotic mystery') in Birthday Letters. She was something of a poet, an artist, translator and copy-writer. See lot 506.

PROVENANCE: Ted Hughes.

REFERENCE: Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev, A Lover of Unreason: the Life and Tragic Death of Assia Wevill, 2006.