25. March. 08

I love vintage postcards from the art nouveau/art deco period.  little pieces of beautiful art.  Recently, I've been reading a biography/coffee table book on a little known artist who created some of the most beautiful works of the period, Samuel L. Schmucker:  The Discovery of His Lost Art.  The authors discovered eighty-eight paintings by Samuel L. Schmucker, in which half of these paintings were published as postcards in 1907, and half are unpublished images. It is the largest collection in the world of original postcard art from the Golden Age. The story of the discovery involves the "Yellowstone Connection" of the famous American pioneer photographer William Henry Jackson and the Haynes family, photographers and concessionaires in Yellowstone National Park. The book explores the relationship of W. H. Jackson and the Detroit Publishing Company and how Jackson was instrumental in saving Schmucker's paintings from destruction.  It makes me wonder how many other great artists might be forgotten.