SF artist crafted sly holiday cards
About 100 cards are on display at the New Mexico History Museum
Hallmark probably wouldn’t have approved most of the Christmas and New Year’s cards exchanged by well-known Santa Fe artist Gustave Baumann and his friends.
But so what? Since they made their own, they didn’t need no steenkin’ badge of approval from any corporation.
“Some of these are not typical Christmas cards. They’re irreverent — one was a little risque,” said Tom Leech, director of the Palace Press and co-author with Jean Moss of a book chronicling the greetings sent and received over some five decades. About 100 cards are on display in the Mezzanine Gallery at the New Mexico History Museum through March 29.
They were chosen from a collection of some 400 that must have felt like a wonderful gift themselves when they were donated in 2012 by the Ann Baumann Trust.
“We’re approaching these as artifacts,” as opposed to art, Leech said. “One of my favorite pieces from ’23 has tack holes and coffee cup rings. A couple are fragile but most are in fine shape.” That might be surprising, considering Baumann’s cards covered a period from 1919 to 1970.
Leech’s very favorite card is from 1935 and features a pinto bearing a cowboy, who holds a gun and wears a sombrero, which has a magpie pecking at it. The message out front reads: “Roam, roam on our range. You’re sure to find plenty of room. We ain’t got no herd, so we herd a cowbird, and we hope it ain’t processed next year.”
What does that even mean, Leech wondered. “The strange sense of humor, I think that’s what I’m attracted to,” he added.
Inside, the card reads: “Greetings and all that sort of thing.”
Actually, that was the title he wanted to give the exhibit, Leech said, but he was overruled.
The book is divided by decades, the exhibit by themes. Including cards other artists sent to the Baumanns, the exchanges offer some insights into the times. Especially early on, the artists relatively new to New Mexico explore the area’s culture and include scenes specific to the region, from cowboys to Native Americans, cacti to ristras, burros to broncos.
“There was a fascination with New Me and give it a New Mexico spin.”
Sly commentary also is included, such as Baumann’s 1929 card with a barrel rolling toward the viewer with four-leaf clovers in its wake, wishing, “New Year’s greetings with a hogshead full of good luck or just plain ginger ale.” Prohibition was in effect, but abstinence probably was not.
During the Depression, Jack and Virginia (any further identity is unknown) sent a penciland-ink drawing on a torn paper bag of Santa riding a donkey, with the message: “Old Santa left his deer behind — With his toys and Xmas tree — Instead this year he’s on his ass — Alack! and so are we!!!”
The ’40s drew hopes for peace, while a 1957 Baumann card wishing a “beepless New Year as of long ago” caused Leech to furrow his brow, until he realized it was about the Sputnik the Russians had sent into orbit.
Baumann, who died in 1971, may have had mortality on his mind in some of his later cards, Leech said. One noted, “We believe exit laughing,” while his final card, in 1970, noted, “In one door and out the other.”
A master printer, Baumann’s art was created from woodcuts. But, as Leech wrote in an introduction to the book, “Calling Maestro Baumann a printer is like calling Tiffany a jeweler or Stravinsky a musician.”