Ephemera Events, News & Exhibitions

Christmas Greetings by Modern British Artists

Get in the festive spirit with Pallant House Gallery's collection of artist-designed Christmas cards. Discover the personal and playful cards made by Edward Bawden, Ben Nicholson, Enid Marx and more.

Did you know that Christmas cards are a British invention? The first Christmas card is believed to have been commissioned in 1843 by Henry Cole, founding director of the V&A. He and his friend, the artist John Horsley, designed the first Christmas card as a way of encouraging ordinary people to use the newly-formed postal service to keep in touch with friends and family.

This festive Print Room display will feature over 100 original Christmas cards dating from the 1950s to the present day. It includes cards made by celebrated British artists including Edward Bawden, Glenn Brown, Barnett Freedman, Nigel Henderson, Enid Marx, Ben Nicholson, and Glyn Philpot.

• Pallant House Gallery
• 8–9 North Pallant
• Chichester
• PO19 1TJ
• UK

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Bracing Air, Abundant Amusements: The Travel Posters of Charles Pears

Bustling beaches, bathing belles and bold Art Deco design. Be transported back to the heyday of rail tourism, day trips and the British seaside holiday with the vibrant travel posters of Pontefract-born artist, Charles Pears.

A renowned marine artist, illustrator and member of the Royal Academy, this exhibition celebrates Pears in the town where he grew up and began his initial training. Focusing on his career as a commercial artist, it features works kindly lent from national collections, including designs for London Transport and British rail companies.

Admire peaceful scenes from the banks of the Thames, enjoy the bright lights of the city and soak up plenty of sun, sea, sand and sky.

• Pontefract Museum
• 5 Salter Row
• Pontefract
• WF8 1BA
• UK

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This Is What Democracy Looked Like: A Visual History of the Printed Ballot

This bureaucratic piece of paper represents our long struggle to make elections free, fair, and honest. Printed ballots embody the material history of our democracy: its ideas, routines, and abuses. These ballots have a story to tell.

By the 1880s, the public demanded reforms to a clearly corrupt voting system. A new format from Australia introduced parameters that seem obvious to us now: an official ballot administered and distributed by the state, a nonpartisan layout that listed all the candidates on one sheet, and the most radical innovation: the ballot was to be marked in private.

This new format was not an immediate hit. While it offered equality and privacy, its adoption initiated our enduring history of contested voter intent and disputed mark making—and the end of freewheeling ballot design.

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Presented by the Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, USA.

Image: Detail from People’s Party Ticket, 1884, Massachusetts. Courtesy American Antiquarian Society.

Wish You Were Here: 151 Years of the British Postcard

Wish You Were Here celebrates and explores the iconic role the postcard has played in connecting people for more than a century and a half.

The British postcard’s history began in 1870 and 2020 marked its 150th anniversary. An innovation of its time, the postcard meant new and faster correspondence through the post.

They were used to send secret messages of love, to boost morale for soldiers at war and to boast from holidays near and afar.

Visitors can explore the postcard through history and reflect on its future with themes including romance, First World War correspondence, the Great British seaside, contemporary art and the postcard in a digital age.

• The Postal Museum
• 15-20 Phoenix Place
• London
• WC1X 0DA
• UK

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A Century of Dining Out: The American story in menus 1841-1941

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Henry Voigt the foremost authority on American menus -- has released an online preview of his upcoming Grolier Club exhibition, A Hundred Years of Dining Out: The American Story of Menus, 1841-1941.

Originally scheduled to open this month, the real-life exhibition has been postponed until December 7, 2022.

Academic Dress on Picture Postcards Published by Davis’s of Oxford, Their Rivals and Successors

The Burgon Society, @BurgonSoc, is an educational charity for the study of academical dress around the world.

The most recent edition of their journal is online and has an article about the academical dress on postcards by Alex Kerr and is free to read (PDF)

“Our weapon is public opinion” Posters of the women’s suffrage movement

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Display for the centenary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act – the parliamentary act that finally gave some women the vote.