Brian Coleman
I attribute my collection of Prang Christmas cards entirely to fellow Grolier member Jane Curley who introduced me to Prang and his beautiful Christmas cards several years ago. It wasn’t long before I started collecting them myself, framing them in period frames with glass backs to be able to read the inscriptions.
Louis Prang was born in 1824 in Breslau, Silesia (present day Poland). He studied printing and dyeing techniques in Bohemia before immigrating as a political refugee to America in 1850. He settled in Boston and went on to develop chromolithography from which today's printing industry was established.
By the late-nineteenth century in America, Prang's name was synonymous with art materials and art education. In his day, art education was only for amateur artists and young ladies in finishing school. Louis Prang believed that all children should study art, and he developed instructional guides and a complete educational curriculum; then trained the country's first art instructors.
With his invention of chromolithography, Prang was the first person to create and publish Christmas Cards in 1874. His cards are generally accepted as the start of the greeting card industry in the United States which earned him the title “Father of the American Christmas Card.” It is difficult to exaggerate the excitement generated by these Christmas cards. Young ladies are said to have noted in their diaries how many “Prang's” they had received that year. Beginning in 1880, Prang held four consecutive Christmas card designing contests with prizes ranging from $200 to $1000; examples are showcased in period frames for this exhibition.
Charles Caryl Coleman. Prang Christmas Card, 1881. Third Prize $500.
Coleman was an American artist who celebrated the Aesthetic Movement’s “Art for Art’s Sake” enrichment of life through art with this still life of cherry blossoms, a fan, and a Japanese blue and white vase. Nineteen progressive printings were used to obtain the richly saturated colors.
Rosina Emmet. Prang Christmas Card, 1881.
Prang’s second contest held in 1881 awarded Fourth Prize ($200) to artist Rosina Emmet (Sherwood) for this sweet image of a mother holding her baby. Rosina (who won First Prize of $1000 in 1880) and her friend and fellow artist Dora Wheeler used their Prang prize money to travel and study together in Paris in 1882.
Alex Sandier. Prang Christmas Card, 1880.
Alexander Sandier won Second Prize ($500) in Prang’s first prestigious Christmas card competition. Held in June 1880 at the American Art Gallery, judges included Stanford White, John LaFarge, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and Samuel Colman. The cards were published until the 1890s when inexpensive German cards flooded the market and Prang chose to pursue other printing ventures.
Walter Satterlee. Prang Christmas Card, 1882.
Walter Satterlee was a Brooklyn-born artist and teacher, well-known for his genre paintings and figures in Colonial and period costumes. He won Second Prize ($500) in the third Christmas Card contest for his painting of children caroling with cherubs on a snowy winter evening. At its height, Prang produced five million cards a year.
Dora Wheeler. Prang Christmas Card, 1881.
Dora, the daughter of Associated Artist founder Candace Wheeler, was an accomplished artist in her own right and studied under William Merritt Chase. She won Second Prize ($500) in the 1881 contest for this Christmas Card design of trumpeting angels with wings of peacock feathers. Dora worked with her mother for Tiffany Co., creating tapestries with designs similar to her Prang cards.