Artists & Christmas
From the late 1950s until his death in 1987, Andy Warhol was a central figure in New York’s creative community; the parties at his “Factory” have become modern myths. The Christmas season fitted in well with his focus on creating friendships. However, it was society’s relationship to consumption that he addressed most intensively in his art, and Christmas time was again a rich source of material for this particular interest. In the 1950s, he also created many Christmas designs using blotted lines.
Surprisingly (perhaps), Salvador Dali once created a series of 19 Christmas cards for a Barcelona card company.
Street artist Banksy has depicted Mary and Joseph’s passage to Bethlehem as being blocked by the wall that separates Israel from Palestine and the West Bank. The image draws parallels between Mary and Joseph’s refugee status and today’s refugee crisis in the Middle East.
Matisse always brings joy and colour with his free-flowing cut-outs. We think this piece, though not specifically for Christmas, has a festive feel about it. It was originally designed for a stained-glass window that was never realised. What is arguably Matisse’s greatest stained glass is in The Rosary Chapel in the town of Vence in the south of France.
