"American Christmas Cards 1900-1960" by Kenneth L. Ames

American Christmas Cards 1900-1960 Kenneth L. Ames

Price: £25.00
Add to Basket

Share this page:

Format:: Paperback
Publication date:: 14 Oct 2011
ISBN:: 9780300176872
Imprint:: Bard Center
Dimensions:: 320 pages: x 178mm
Illustrations:: 250 color illus.
Sales territories:: World

Categories:

Arts »
Art Treatments & Subjects »
Exhibition Catalogues & Specific Collections »

The power of Christmas derives from the appeal of its repeated rituals, the presumed antiquity of its traditions, and its ability to adapt to changing cultural conditions. Christmas cards seemed inevitable and ubiquitous, but in recent years the genre has been visibly in decline. It is now evident that the Christmas card was a culturally specific artefact, a distinctive way in which a fundamental human gesture could be expressed within a commercial, materialistic, and rapidly changing society.

This stylish book explores the imagery, graphic forms, subject matter, and significance of Christmas cards in their chronological timeframe to reveal an important area of American material culture. There is much to surprise and delight.

More about this title

Read an article by American Christmas Cards author Kenneth Ames on Yale's blog

Kenneth L. Ames is professor of American decorative arts at the Bard Graduate Center. He is the author of Beyond Necessity: Art in the Folk Tradition and Death in the Dining Room and Other Tales of Victorian Culture, and editor of Victorian Furniture.

"A total delight whatever the season and well worth the money"—Richard Edmonds, The Birmingham Post