Julia and Paul Child Valentine’s Day portrait, 1958
Photo by Kevin Grady/Radcliffe Institute
Julia McWilliams met Paul Child in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) while working for the Office of Strategic Services. They married in 1946 and spent the postwar years in Paris, where Paul worked for the US Information Agency, and Julia learned to cook. Not until many years later, after the publication of Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) and while living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, did Julia Child become the titular French Chef. Paul devoted himself to her career as “resident manager” of her television shows.
Paul was an accomplished photographer, artist, and chronicler of their life together. He created annual Valentine’s Day cards to send to family and friends, sharing their exuberance and love for life with others. This was their 1958 Valentine’s Day portrait.
Photo by Paul Child, Julia Child Papers, Schlesinger Library
Catalog record:
http://id.lib.harvard.edu/aleph/000605341/catalog
Learn more:
Read the Harvard Gazette story about the Schlesinger Library's collection.
See the Schlesinger Library's research guide to Julia Child.
Watch all four segments, below, of a symposium held at the Radcliffe Institute in 2012 to celebrate the legacy of Julia Child on the centenary year of her birth:
