SEPTEMBER 20, 2008 – OCTOBER 19, 2008
Greetings from Delaware and Other Artist Communities, features over 250 hand-made greeting cards, the majority of the Jann Haynes Gilmore and B. Joyce Puckett collection, by both regional and national professional artists. The exhibition will be filled with artful greetings manufactured and sent by artists such as, Rockwell Kent, N.C. Wyeth, Blanche Lazell, Ethel Leach, Frank Schoonover and John Sloan. The display of these cards will be highlighted by many full-scale paintings and fine-art prints by several of the featured artists.
As objects designed and often printed by professional artists, the cards of this collection display poignant and timeless visual messages through expert craftsmanship. At the same time, these artist-generated cards from Delaware, the mid-Atlantic region and throughout the country offered their admirers a unique view into little-known regions of the American art scene of the first half of the twentieth century. In a period full of changing social values and economic hardships, the cards of the Gilmore/Puckett collection demonstrate the versatility and perseverance of American artists under tremendous adversity. Perhaps more importantly, these images supplied novel interpretations of universally cherished notions of community, family, beauty, and hope at a time when Americans often needed them most, during the holidays.