Postcard of the Day No. 109, Orphaned Postcards

If a brand character can be orphaned (as we noted in our last post) the same fate can befall the humble postcard. Careless publishers will often supply inadequate captions or omit them altogether. When this happens some clues can often be obtained from the postmark or publisher’s details on the reverse side. But if the publisher is anonymous and the card has avoided the postal system, we have an orphaned card of an unidentifiable scene.  A nice example is the card above in which a small army of workers shuffle towards their wage packets. This much we know from the caption (which even includes the precise date) but we can only guess at the location.  It looks like a broad canal basin in an American industrial town or city - it could be anywhere between New Jersey and Illinois with Chicago, because of its size, the most likely.  If the camera position had been slightly to the right it would have revealed the full name of the lager advertised in the distance which may have been helpful. None of this uncertainty detracts from the visual drama of a stoical workforce forming a comradely line in drenching rain as they inch their way towards the fruits of their labours.

A pleasing distraction when fumbling through boxes of cards at a postcard fair is overhearing the requests from fellow collectors.  Most have only a single town, village or settlement in their sights - “Any Brixham, Polkerris, Sidmouth, Ipplepen, Liskeard, St. Columb Major?” they bark and if the answer is negative, move on without a word.  Others have based their collections on more obscure areas of human experience and in voices tinged with resignation in anticipation of failure, will ask for anything on dentistry, card games, road works, dog fights, perfumes, shoe making, buildings under construction, clairvoyants, et al.  Of all such requests, the most impressive came from somebody who asked for any unknown or unidentified scenes and even more impressively the dealer handed over a shoebox full of examples to the collector’s great delight.  It seems this is a thing - some value these orphans for their sense of mystery while others turn detective to resolve the mystery.

Above is another orphaned example - on this occasion the caption is obscured by careless overprinting.  An abundance of sand ruled out Brighton and it didn’t look much like either Blackpool, Scarborough or Bournemouth. By squinting at the caption from a variety of angles I just about convinced myself the second word was Eastbourne.  Checking with other cards showing the same glazed pavilion from a different angle on the esplanade soon confirmed that it was. It’s an interesting card because of its informality and animation. What lets it down are gloomy colour values and a general lack of detail. French contemporary publishers, such as Louis Levy (LL), would have done a much better job with their superior print definition.

 

Postcard of the Day No. 101 - Aquatic Frolics in the Wannsee

The normal relationships of scale we would expect to see in a spatially coherent composition are not to be found here in this postcard image of the Wannsee in Berlin. It’s more of a collage than an integrated image in which incongruities of size and disposition undermine our ability to fully conceptualise the visual (mis)information. It’s a paradox that German postcard producers famous for exacting high standards of printing should produce clumsy, slapdash assemblages of clip art in such numbers.  That apart, it must be conceded they are not without a certain naive charm.

The Wannsee is a recreational and bathing centre located in the south western suburbs of the Berlin,  popular with city residents. The distinguished artist Max Liebermann built himself a lakeside country home in 1909.  In 1930 the influential silent film People on Sunday was filmed there. Later, in 1942 the Wannsee Villa hosted a gruesome gathering of Nazi bureaucrats, presided over by Heydrich and Eichmann with the aim of finalising arrangements for the Final Solution.

In Malo-les-Bains the photographer has captured a remarkable instant of documentary realism. The eye is drawn to the right where a Burt Lancaster lookalike embraces a pair of athletic bathing belles. In the centre a group of mostly moustachioed males try with varying degrees of success to join in the celebratory mood. On the left is a living caricature of rotundity, his ample contours amplified by the unflattering horizontal stripes that protect his modesty.  A few more examples of immersion or part-immersion follow.  None are from the UK - Brits were reluctant swimmers in this era, preferring to congregate, bare foot but fully dressed, on the tideline, with sullen and disconsolate stares directed at the cold grey sea that surrounds their sceptred isle.

 

Postcard of the Day No. 90 – Houlgate, La Plage

Our photographer here in the respectable Normandy seaside resort of Houlgate, west of Honfleur, has done an excellent job of choreographing his human subjects, almost all of whom are fully focused on their tasks. Groups of junior excavators dig energetically in the sand while the foreground boat crew prepare for launching forth into la Manche. Children outnumber adults by about 3 to 1 but irrespective of age, every single person wears a hat and dutifully poses for the camera. The solitary dissenter is the mysterious Man in White who appears to be making his escape between two beach huts. Overlooking the beach is the Grand Hôtel, once the haunt of literary celebrities such as Zola and Proust. To this day Houlgate is mostly unspoilt and its 19th. century grand villas still dominate the foreshore and the town behind. It also lacks the upmarket exclusivity that makes some other resorts so uncomfortable to anyone without a private income. A previous visit to Houlgate can be seen by following this link.

The Visual Delights of Belgian Beach Huts

A heavy blanket of cloud, a sharp cold wind off the North Sea and a deserted sandy beach at De Panne with a late September autumnal feeling in the air. Perfect conditions against which to observe the painted geometry of a small army of beach huts silently confronting the ocean. Rich colour statements, some bold, some subtle, sing out under leaden skies. The beach becomes a temporary art installation for lovers of abstract geometric form. The vintage postcards confirm that Belgium has a long tradition of this sort of seashore display.