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Sylvia Plath

(1932-1963), Poet and writer

Sitter in 4 portraits
Artist of 1 portrait
Plath was a leading writer whose 'confessional poetry', journals as well as her suicide and subsequent re-appraisal have established her status. Born in Boston, Plath moved to England with a Fulbright scholarship to study at Newnham College, Cambridge. There she met fellow poet Ted Hughes. Her first collection of poems The Colossus was published in 1960. Her marriage to Ted Hughes was troubled by his infidelity and by her own disturbed psychological history, elements of which informed her celebrated novel The Bell Jar (1963). The vicissitudes of their relationship were described in Plath's journals, and were later evoked by Hughes in his collection of poems, Birthday Letters (1998).

Watch a film clip on the sitter from the BBC Archive in the Media section below

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Ted Hughes
by Sylvia Plath
NPG 6739

Related People

Edward James ('Ted') Hughes (husband)

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Place

United States

Media

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Sylvia Plath