Artists’ Postcards SERIES II

Artists’ Postcards is a nonprofit venture founded in 1977 to bring something new to the American scene — high quality, general circulation postcards made from original works that artists created in 4 X 6 inch format expressed to be published as postcards.

Series II consists of fifty works in varied media, produced originally on more than ten different papers, by diverse printing processes. The artists are painters, sculptors, photographers, poets, cartoonists, writers, filmmakers, architects, and a dancer.

The original works for Series II were exhibited in 1978 at the Cooper - Hewitt Museum in New York City and traveled to museums throughout the United States in an exhibition developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.

Series II included an Artists’ Postcard Special Edition, a card by Michael Langenstein, which used flicker-photo technique and juxtaposes the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center with both the ancient Egyptian desert and the landscape of the moon. This card is today in the collection of the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York.

Abbie Zabar

Still Life

Agnes Denes

Isometric Systems in Isotropic Space

Alan Gussow

Well-rotted Manure Steaming

Alex Katz

Alexander Hollweg

Stonewall

Barkley L. Hendricks

Me (self-portrait)

Beth Van Hoesen

Rat

Betye Saar

Aunt Sally Hoodoo´s The Parthenon

Artists’ Postcards has some refreshing ideas about promoting art. One of its many goals is to make distinguished contemporary works so widely available that anyone can afford them. This accomplishment will secure an audience for the works of living artists and further establish postcards as an art form.
A.Z.
The Boston Phoenix
February 7, 1978

Bill Sullivan

Swan

Carl Anthony

Sweet Dream

Carl Wald

Lip Service

Cecile Gray

Bazelon, Doors

Chris von Wangenheim

Regine and Christine

Costantino Nivola

I miss you Heather

David Hockney

Swimming Pool, Fire Island

Dick Higgins

Snowflake on turning forty

The most impressive thing about this Artists’ Postcards mini-group show [at the Cooper - Hewitt Museum] is…the extraordinary care which as been given to their reproduction. Each card is a miniature edition in its own right. Art institutions and patrons often speak of this sort of enlightened grass roots approach to art, but few would venture the fidelity, respect, and dollars with which Joan Davidson and her colleagues have mounted this enterprise. The exhibition demonstrates that we long no more for souvenirs of emotion, remembrance of lost times, and cheap versions of safe art, but for souvenirs of spaces lost to us — the perished spaces of the mind and heart. The most evocative image in the show comes close to stating that regret. In a double-image flicker card, Michael Langenstein has merged the World Trade Center, the Pyramids, and the post-Romantic moon in a landscape of great desolation. Now, that’s a postcard.
Dale McConathy.
Skyline, The Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies
November, 1978

Duane Michals

Homage to Puvis de Chavannes

Edward Koren

The Conference on Values Takes a Break

Fanny Brennan

Birthday

Frances Butler

Because it´s all gesture and nobody ever talked in words

Franz Carl Nicolay

No Nukes Everlasting, Amen

Fred W. McDarrah

Electric Chair, Greenhaven Correctional

George Griffin

24 Phases

Hugh Kepets

Rail I

We are grateful of its invention and cheer.
The New York Times
1977

Jane Freilicher

Peony

John Furnival

Adam´s First Words to Eve

Jonathan Williams

Poet´s Silhouette

John M. Johansen

Celebration

Joseph Goldyne

Couple

Joseph Szilva

Wish You Were Her

Katharine Nuckols Gilbert

Family Fantasy, Chatham

Leah Feldon

... many shall run to and fro...

Distinguished contemporary art for the price of a candy bar? How could that be? It’s true says Artists’ Postcards, which has been proving the point since last November with a limited edition of 39 4” X 6” mini - pictures that sell for 25¢ each.
Craft Horizons
The American Craft Council, 1978.

Lella and Massimo Vignelli

Heartless

Lella and Massimo Vignelli

Star

Louis I. Kahn

Pyramids, Egypt, 1951

Lynda Caspe

The Atalanta Building New York City

Manuel Casimiro

Oedipe expliquant l´enigme

Martha Graham

From the Notebooks

Neil Blaine

Anemones, Red Tablecloth, and Window

Norman B. Colp

My View from P.S.1 (a flip-book)

As small but significant art objects, these postcards reflect the changing standards, values, and attitudes of the art world. They display the continually evolving and advancing mediums and technical formats available to artists and the increasing variety, diversity, and sophistication of this popular art form.
Barnard Bulletin
November 8, 1978

Pat Adams

Remarks

Raymond Saunders

Robert J. Cuneo

Rev. Bob´s Universal Life Church of Poetry Art

Robert MacMillan

Sniffing Gypsy

Robert Mapplethorpe

Torso

Stephanie Brody Lederman

Waitin´ and Wantin´

Tom Prassis

A Face in the city ( Ear-go Sum)

Tom Wolfe

Great Moments in Broadcast Journalism the Pre-show Dry-blow

It is interesting to note how successfully each work is translated from its original state into the postcard format…The nicest thing is to be able to walk away from the exhibition with a pack of reproductions held tightly in your hand. Then you can share the enjoyment with a friend by sending your favorite postcard.
Nina Ffrench-Frazier
ARTnews
1978

Tom Zetterstrom

Maple Tree, Western Massachusetts

Wayne Thiebaud

Five Candy Treats

Wendell Barry Stevens

Dark Horizon

William Copley

Garden for Black Tears

Series I

The initial edition of thirty-nine postcards was the first of its kind to be published in the U.S.A. Distinct from art postcards that are miniature versions of celebrated works, each Artists’ Postcard carries a new picture created especially for it by a living artist.

Explore Series I

Holiday Cards

Based on the popularity of the Artists’ Postcards Series I and II editions, select artists from the earlier series created special cards for the 1979 holiday season.

Explore Holiday Cards