Rockwell Kent
Twelve Christmas Cards, c. 1935-1950
(Ausable Forks)
1800
Group of Christmas cards featuring reproductions of illustrations by Kent. All cards are addressed to Martha and Alex Geckler, German friends of Kent's whom he met while working as the...
Group of Christmas cards featuring reproductions of illustrations by Kent. All cards are addressed to Martha and Alex Geckler, German friends of Kent's whom he met while working as the architectural foreman at Briarcombe Farms in Winona, Minnesota in the early nineteen-teens. All but two cards bear inscriptions from the artist, or from his wife, Sally; one card bears an inscription from the Geckler's daughter, Inge. Six cards were produced by the American Artists Group while six show no imprint and were presumably produced by Kent. Two cards contain longer messages from Kent - one in Kent's tiny, precise handwriting, and the other typewritten. The holograph card mentions a painting Kent had completed a year earlier but had not yet built a box in which to send it; the other thanks Alex and Martha for the gift of nuts from their orchard. Both make direct statements about a wish for "a quick victory" and for a peace "that embraces all of us and all the world," indicating these were sent during the Second World War. A fine archive, housed in an envelope for the 1935 greeting, with the Geckler's Oakland address in Kent's hand.