— Free and open to the public.
On Thursday, November 6, 5:30 p.m., New York University will celebrate the opening of the “Nicholas Wahl Papers,” a major new archival collection devoted to the life and times of Charles DeGaulle, the French Resistance leader and founder of the Fifth Republic. This event also helps celebrate the 25th anniversary of NYU’s Institute of French Studies.
Documents from the collection, including personal letters from Charles DeGaulle, press clippings, several political posters and artifacts, personal notebooks, and handwritten notes as well as important correspondence with political, academic and intellectual French luminaries will be on display at the Mamdouha S. Bobst Gallery, located on the ground floor of the NYU Bobst Library, 70 Washington Square South. The exhibit will be on display through the end of November.
Nicholas Wahl, director of NYU’s Institute of French Studies until his death in 1996, was one of America’s foremost experts on DeGaulle. He served as an unofficial advisor to DeGaulle in the late 1950s, and his access to the French leader enabled him to collect an extensive array of materials documenting DeGaulle’s political career. Wahl also recorded, in three notebooks, the highlights of interviews he conducted with many of DeGaulle’s closest collaborators, and these notebooks, which have never been published, constitute an invaluable source for scholars and other researchers.
Attending the opening event will be Dr. John Brademas, president emeritus, NYU; Tom Bishop, director, Center for French Civilization and Culture, NYU; Nancy Cricco, University Archivist; Edward Berenson, director, Institute of French Studies; and Yves-André Istel, vice chairman, Rothschild Inc. and board member, French-American Foundation, among others.
The Institute of French Studies at NYU is a multi-disciplinary center for the study of nineteenth- and twentieth-century France. Its innovative graduate programs emphasize French culture, history, politics, economics, and society.