100 Years of Christmas Silhouettes 1925–2025

EXACTLY 100 YEARS AGO, somewhere in England, an unknown silhouettist was cutting portraits and pasting them to an Xmas Greetings card. I know nothing about the artist and have never seen any other stylistically-similar silhouettes which I could attribute to them with any confidence.

The artist was probably working in a department store, having been hired to offer a small Xmas gift to customers during the busy Christmas shopping season. The cards are postcards, with a printed green border (is that holly?), space on the back to add an address and stamp, and a line underneath for people to write their names.

Sadly, neither of these people bothered to do so!

I found both cards separately, online, with one clearly in better condition than the other. The fact that neither was ever posted indicates a possible flaw in the concept: would sending an image of yourself as a Christmas card feel like an odd thing to do?

A Postcard for 2025

Looking at these cards, however, I felt inspired to return to the postcard theme for my own hand-made Christmas card this year. Rather than send an image of myself I decided to make a silhouette of Anna Corsep, author of Die Silhouette, of which I published an English version last month. She’s my 2025 “silhouettist of the year”!

Usefully, her book includes a self-portrait silhouette. However, rather than simply copy it, I preferred to make my own impression of her with reference to the only (rather indistinct) photograph of her I’ve been able to find. Being face on, the photograph is not much use for making a silhouette, but does at least show me that Anna had a more prominent nose than her self portrait suggests…

Anna Corsep

Anna Corsep strikes me as a quirky character, prone to an artistic dress code, and very much a kindred spirit. So, to present her portrait, I created my own set of blank postcards using one of Anna’s paper-cut border designs. This I printed in red on the front of the card, with space to write a message and address on the back. I then hand cut an edition of 500 more-or-less similar silhouettes of her and pasted them all into these printed borders.

Being postcards I plan to send them without envelopes (a considerable saving in paper) much as the 1925 postcard was designed to be sent. They will be going out (hopefully in time for the last Christmas posting date) to friends, family, and the many clients who have booked me for events within the last two years or so.

As always, I left the process just a bit too late for comfort!

About Postcard Silhouettes

There are many reasons I’m drawn to postcards. Partly, it’s nostalgia; hardly anyone sends them anymore, so they bring back memories of days long past when we were all encouraged to send postcards from abroad while travelling.

Postcards were once a major market for silhouettists. During the “golden age” of postcards (roughly 1890 – 1920) many silhouettists earned a living by cutting portraits and pasting them to cheap and readily-available blank postcards. I wrote in detail about one of them, M. Silvar, earlier this year. Over the years I’ve collected many hundreds of such postcard silhouettes by a wide variety of artists. The best of them printed their own postcards (like our unknown English artist of 1925) which often consisted of an empty oval or rectangular border into which to paste a silhouette. Many artists also added their own name, either underneath the border or on the back. Others either didn’t wish to do so (perhaps not wanting to be associated with such a lowly art) or simply didn’t feel it was important.

Have you ever received a silhouette as a postcard? Or perhaps you have some, sitting in a drawer, sent from or to a relative long ago? If so, I’d love you to add a photograph below. I’m fascinated by such objects and might even be able to help you identify the artist.