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Photo from the collection of
Clive
Driver
Original woodblock design for a Christmas
card, 1959,
by Fritz Pfeiffer, showing Santa Claus as a Provincetown clam digger. |
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Christmas cards by Provincetown artists
Clive
Driver
BANNER COLUMNIST
From her winter home in West Virginia, painter and white-line woodblock print artist Blanche Lazzell sent as seasonal mementos photographic postcards, supplied to her bv renowned Provincetown photographer Walter Stiff, picturing views of Lazzell's harborfront Provincetown studio, sometimes even showing the artist at work. Marston ('Bud') and Lucy Hodgin sent cards individually ornamented on the front with a watercolor view by Bud, and on the inside with one of Lucy's poems. East ender Edith Thomas sent cards that were entirely handmade. The McKains also sent original works, decorated with a design by Bruce.
One of the most consistently original, however, were the cards sent throughout the 1940s and 1950s by Fritz and Hope Pfeiffer, each year's card bearing a different woodblock design. John and Adelaide Gregory also sent cards and postcards, illustrated either with Jack's photographs or lithographs. Undoubtedly, many other artists also sent out original cards from time to time, though, unfortunately, not many of them seem to have survived, and the best ones of the past are seldom seen or encountered today, though perhaps there are still caches of them in Provincetown attics.
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Dec 25th, 1997