Artists' Homemade Christmas Cards
Seasonal greetings from artists such as Alexander Calder and Philip Guston celebrate the handmade holiday card
- By Abby Callard
- Smithsonian magazine, December 2009, Subscribe
Long before computer-generated Santas decked the halls, artists handcrafted their own greetings. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Americans last year sent more than two billion Christmas cards, and a great many bore a familiar sentiment printed in an overseas factory and boxed for mass consumption. The more than 100 holiday cards in a new exhibition at the Smithsonian's Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, each one designed by an artist for personal use, represent a fresher approach to a tradition that is for many of us, let's admit it, something of a chore. Most of the exhibition cards celebrate Christmas, while several acknowledge Hanukkah and the New Year. They were selected from the Archives of American Art's collection of artists' ephemera, which also includes journals, sales receipts and snapshots.
The thick brushstrokes and cartoon-like blazing fireplace in Philip Guston's 1970s Christmas card are unmistakably his, reminiscent of his darkly primitive renderings of hooded Ku Klux Klan members. "Right away you see that style, but it's happy," Mary Savig, one of the exhibition curators, says of the Guston image.
In 1929, Alexander Calder, best known for his wondrous mobiles, took time out from Cirque Calder, the wire-sculpture circus he showed in Paris and New York City, to create a playful linocut New Year's card, perhaps the exhibition's most ribald season's greeting.
A 1989 card by Pablo Cano, a Miami-based Cuban-American artist known for his marionettes, depicts a dove in a swirl of blue. "This would sell well," says Savig, who, as it happens, worked for a greeting-card company in Minnesota during high school. "Doves always sell well."
But the cards in this exhibition weren't about making money. They were for friends, family and maybe a gallery owner or two. Not meant for public viewing, they give us an intimate, unguarded view of artists doing what we count on artists to do: break through the canned sentiments and commercial clutter of their time to make a personal statement.
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Related topics: Artists Christmas
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Comments (11)
Please show pictures
Posted by Brooklyn on December 21,2011 | 07:27 PM
Happy Holidays to everyone.
A slide show of holiday cards can be seen at this link: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/multimedia/photos/?c=y&articleID=69320392&page=1
Posted by JD Rose on December 13,2010 | 10:49 AM
Please tell me where I can order Smithsonian Christmas cards on line.
Posted by Carol McClure on August 28,2010 | 10:10 AM
I'd love to be able to order some of these cards - is that a possibility?
Posted by Nancy Pullen on May 10,2010 | 12:20 PM
is there anyway to order some of the Christmas cards that are featured in the article of the December 2009 issue?
Thank you,
Patti Skondovitch
Posted by Patti Skondovitch on March 1,2010 | 05:27 PM
I would like to order the 2009 Christmas cards now. Is this possible?
I don't see them listed on this sheet?
Thank you.
Posted by Vivian Terry on December 30,2009 | 02:57 PM
The “Season's Greetings: Holiday Cards from the Archives of American Art” exhibition is on display until Jan. 10, 2010 at Archives of American Art’s gallery space in the Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture in Washington, D.C.
http://www.aaa.si.edu/exhibits/seasonsgreetings/
Posted by Abby Callard on December 14,2009 | 01:28 PM
Help! What a great idea, but where is the exhibit? There is nothing on the Portrait Gallery's website, nor on American Art, and the title of the exhibit is not in the Smithsonian Magazine. Is the exhibit up right now?
Posted by Franz Jantzen on December 9,2009 | 10:05 AM
Where is the artist's christmas card exhibit?
Posted by Sarah Shifflet on December 8,2009 | 10:37 AM
See my extensive research, lectures, and periodical articles on this subject including the catalogue to the exhibition, Greetings from Delaware and Other Artist Communities, The Jann Haynes Gilmore and B. Joyce Puckett Collection of Artist Greeting Cards, Dover: Delaware, Biggs Museum of American Art, 2007. Also, "American Greeting Cards," American Art Review, Vol. XIX, No. 6, December 2007, pgs. 142-147.
Posted by Jann Haynes Gilmore on December 6,2009 | 12:01 PM
This is most impressive and interesting, especially because this very topic was the subject of a brilliant exhibit at the Biggs Museum in Dover, Delaware in November 2007-February 2008. Jann Haynes Gilmore, PhD, created the exhibit and also owns many of the cards in the exhibit. More recently, November 18, Dr. Gilmore presented her lecture with slides of the cards from the Biggs Museum exhibit, in Pinehurst, North Carolina.
"The American Artists' Greeting Cards" by Jann H. Gilmore, PhD., was a featured article in "American Art Review" November, 2007. Quite an extensive display of the artists' messages at Christmastime accompanied their lovely artful renderings spreading cheer and warm wishes to family and friends.
Bravo, Dr. Jann H. Gilmore and the Smithsonian for sharing these lovely creations from artists who bring the world to its humble mankind via their art.
Posted by Kathryn Ford on December 1,2009 | 12:03 AM