Member Andy sent us a link to what seems like a fabulous exhibit going on at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It's called The Postcard Age. From their website:
"In the decades around 1900, postcards were Twitter, e-mail, Flickr, and Facebook, all wrapped into one. A postcard craze swept the world, as billions of cards were bought and mailed, or just pasted into albums. Many famous artists turned to the new medium, but one of the great pleasures of postcards is how some of the most beautiful and interesting cards were made by artists whose names we barely know. This unprecedented exhibition traces how big historical and cultural themes of the modern age—enthralling, exciting, and sometimes disturbing—played out on the postcard’s tiny canvas.
“The Postcard Age” features about 400 cards by a wide variety of artists and publishers from throughout Europe and the Americas. It is arranged not by style or country, but by theme, with sections devoted to, among other things, urban life, the changing role of women, sports, celebrity, new technologies, the stylish collectors’ cards of the art nouveau, and World War I."
As part of the show, there is a gallery talk on the 24th of February at 2PM on why people love postcards. Then, there is a lecture on the evening of March the 6th. I checked out the slide show and it looks amazing. If I were in Boston (and I know some of you are), I'd check it out. It's on veiw until April 14th.
Thanks for the reminder! I've been meaning to check this out.
Posted by: Marissa | February 20, 2013 at 02:05 PM
Odd this should appear today - I just checked a huge book out of my local library called "The Postcard Age" (by L. Klich & B. Weiss) featuring a humongous collection of postcards from this very time. Amazing!! Wish I could be there to see the real deal.
Posted by: StoneZebra | February 20, 2013 at 06:39 PM
The postcard-as-tweet mention is true, at least as I've observed from the ones I inherited from Christian's grandmother; some of them are even his great-grandmother's. Half of them are telling the recipient that they'll be in town in a few days (which would make them more like text messages), and the other half merely say "Hello, won't you write me?"
Posted by: Carolee | February 21, 2013 at 09:12 AM
Oh! Thank you for posting this -- I can go there in a couple of weeks. Lucky me.
Posted by: Pamela | February 21, 2013 at 11:10 AM
This is a wonderful exhibit and definitely worth a visit. Allow this grumble from me a life long until last year Bostonian but I think the $25 MFA Admission fee is too high. They remodel a museum and then drive up the price? I have to say I almost passed on the exhibit due to the $25, but it was an excellent exhibit.
Posted by: Cynthia | February 23, 2013 at 07:24 PM
I just visited the exhibit today. It closes in a week -- and yes, the admission price is steep -- but the exhibit is well worth it. A beautiful, funny, and fascinating collection, artfully curated and described. Thank you, LWA, for turning me on to this wonderful collection!
Posted by: Janna | April 07, 2013 at 11:22 PM
Im glad you got to go!
Posted by: Donovan Beeson | April 08, 2013 at 09:21 AM