Artists' Postcards

Over the last twenty years an increasing number of artists have turned to expressing themselves through postcards. Whether by way of installation, collage, addition to, or alteration of existing postcards, or the production of postcards themselves, many prominent artists employ the medium in some form. Artists' Postcards traces the origin of artists' fascination with postcards from the early 1900s but with a focus on the contemporary, revealing the significant number of artists who have made creative and unusual artworks in postcard form. With more than 400 images of postcards created by many well-known artists, Artists' Postcards is the first critical guide to the subject. From surrealists to Fluxus and conceptual artists, this book includes an array of historical and contemporary postcards by such artists as George Grosz, Bruce Nauman, Richard Long, David Hockney, Richard Hamilton, Susan Hiller, Joseph Beuys, Ben Vautier, Dieter Roth, Ray Johnson, Gordon Matta-Clark, Gavin Turk, Tacita Dean, Gilbert and George and Rachel Whiteread. Artists' Postcards will be of interest to artists and graphic designers, as well as to postcard collectors. 'A curious mix of transience, sentimentality, obsolescence and nostalgia surrounds the humble postcard, which makes them a fertile format for an artist to express themselves. The past 20 years or so has seen a range of artists utilising the postcard, including Rachel Whiteread, Ellsworth Kelly, Gilbert and George and many others. Jeremy Cooper traces this history from the 1900s through to Surrealism and conceptual art and up to the present. This is not a tenuous theme, but a fascinating one, that takes in many important artists on the way.' - The Bookseller