Enid Marx's card encapsulates the playfulness that many of the artists display.
Exhibition preview: Artists' Christmas Cards at Chichester's Pallant House Gallery is running until January 4 2009.
Christmas cards sent to loved ones by artists including architect John Nash, war artist Edward Bawden and children’s illustrator Hardie Williamson are on display at Chichester’s Pallant House Gallery over the festive period.
© Estate of Joan Dawson
German artist Walter Nessler, who fled his country to a life in the English corps after the Nazis denounced radical art as “degenerate”, produces a detailed, rich black and white design, followed by a psychedelic Christmas tree scene in a departure from the monochrome visions he is traditionally known for.
© Estate of Edward Bawden
Bawden conjures a cross between a totem and a staircase with a bright yellow background, and textile icon Enid Marx creates a typically intricate, cute depiction of two lions hurling crackers aside to tussle with the head of Santa.
© Estate of Walter Nessler
Williamson, perhaps best known for his illustrations in the Children’s Illustrated Classics series over four decades, was also a prolific glass and textile designer. His doctor, Patrick Reade, rescued the cards from bin bags destined for dust carts after buying the contents of the artist’s studio following his death in 1994.
© Estate of Walter Nessler
Former students and colleagues of Williamson at the Royal College of Art, where he taught from the 1930s to the 1950s, have also had cards rescued, including influential designers such as Nash and Gilbert Spencer.
Curator Frances Guy said: “I’ve always been struck by the Christmas cards designed and made by artists to send to their families and friends."
"Sometimes these are in-miniature facsimiles of an artist’s professional output, but more often than not they appear to be an outlet for their more playful, humorous or quirky side.”
The exhibition runs until January 4, 2009.
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