The Christmas Festive Season is the time when we indulge in long-standing traditions such as the Christmas tree, presents, Christmas cards, carols, families together around the Christmas table and turkey.
Christmas is also a wonderful magical time of superpower and irrationality.
That makes me wonder what a meeting of the magic of avant-garde art and the traditions of Christmas would look like.
The answer came in the form of an Interesting story by Ann Swanson published in the Washington Post.
Hallmark Cards is the oldest and the largest American company in the greeting cards production business. It was established by Joyce Hall in 1910. It is a family-own company and its headquarters are in Kansas City, Missouri. Since 1940 the company have promoted the art of famous painters such as Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, Paul Gaugen, V. Van Gough and Georgia O’Kaffee to the Americans through the greeting cards market.
In 1959 they approached Salvador Dali, the well known and popular surrealist painter. The deal was very lucrative for Dali – he was paid $15,000 in advance for the creation of 10 Christmas card designs without a deadline, subjects and he retained the copyright.
Eventually Dali produced 10 surrealist interpretations of the Christmas tree and the Holy Family. Hallmark cards company use only two of them – “The Nativity” and “Madonna and Child”. The greeting cards were not subjected to a great demand by the American public and Hallmark took the unsold cards off the shelves.
It seemed like an unhappy ending for modern art. No, no, do not forget – it is Christmas, the magical time,
The Christmas Fairy made everyone happy. The Hallmark greeting card company was awarded the National Medal of Art in 1985. The few hundred Christmas greeting cards by Dali that are still in existence today are a collector’s dream. At Christmas everyone wins.
I wonder which Dali Christmas card you would choose to send to your family, friends and neighbours. Please write your answer in the comments.
My favourite is: The Christmas tree
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