GREETINGS FROM SUNNY NOSTALGIA
As a new exhibition celebrates 150 years of the postcard, how this very British form of communication has chronicled our life and times
price of £90, and almost fainted when it sold in the end for over £1,200.”
Art postcards are also big sellers. Whilst we as a nation may not send nearly as many postcards as we used to, we are certainly still buying them – especially in museum and gallery gift shops.
The Tate family of museums is one of the biggest retailers, selling more than 1.2 million art cards in 2019. Their most popular one is a reproduction of David Hockney’s A Bigger Splash. At 85p, it’s an affordable way of putting the famous artist’s work on your wall – another painting from the Splash series changed hands at
Sotheby’s last
£23million.
It’s not just famous painters that are featured on postcards either. Nathan Huxtable is a Cambridge-based artist whose work is featured in the Postal Museum. Seeking a way to tackle the loneliness suffered by people self-isolating during the pandemic, he started something called The Daily Postcard Project last year. “Every day of lockdown 2020 I painted postcards and sent them round the world to random people in isolation. I asked them to post pictures of themselves holding their cards on Twitter and Instagram with the handle #The Daily Postcard Project to show the importance of human connection.There year for just a tad over are now over 100 postcards in countries including the UK, Australia, Canada, USA, Netherlands, France and Germany.”
WHEN he spoke to the Express, Nathan was putting the finishing touches to his submission for this year’s Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy, so it’s possible that the lucky recipients of his postcards could potentially be sitting on future priceless works of art.
Actors as well as painters are getting in on the “postcard as art” act. Prevented from touring their plays on stage during lockdown, New Perspectives, an East Midlands theatre company, sent out seaside postcards instead, telling their story, Love From Cleethorpes, through a series of six original postcards delivered to the “audience” in week-long intervals.
With so many new and innovative ways of using postcards emerging, it seems that their days might not be numbered after all.
In an age where modern technology can both connect and isolate us, Tom Jackson, a broadcaster and deltiologist (that’s the official
name for a postcards collector), has successfully managed to merge the latest trends in contemporary media with this oldfashioned method of communication.
As well as posting pictures of his favourite postcards to his 96,000 followers on social media @pastpostcard, he hosts a podcast, postcardfromthepast.co.uk, featuring famous guests such as Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp and BBC comedian Robin Ince.
Tom suggests that “as well as nostalgic affection, there’s a kind of retro analogue chic to them, in the same way that vinyl records have”.
But why do people still cherish postcards, when there are now far faster and cheaper ways of sending messages?
“I think postcards endure because of their physicality,” he says. “It’s fun to receive a postcard. You can prop it on your mantelpiece, stick it on the fridge – try doing that with a WhatsApp text! And cardboard is surprisingly resilient.” .
Maybe the Covid-related international travel restrictions in effect this summer will inspire new generations to discover the joys of sending, receiving and collecting postcards from all around the British Isles… providing they can find a post office still open to buy a stamp from.