Well known greeting card artists from seattle

Do you send out a handmade holiday card this year? It’s a lot for an artist to keep up with, hand making each gift and greeting.

Printmakers seem well suited for this time of year.

Freelance greeting card artists

Painters, not so much. Sending an original work of art to everyone on my list seems impossible, but an inability to keep up with individual greetings is precisely why the Christmas card was invented!

The first Christmas card was sent in 1843, by socialite Henry Cole in Victorian England.

Simply put, Cole had too many friends and was unable to keep up with his correspondence. This was terribly awfully rude in Victorian England, so Cole approached an artist friend, J.C. Horsley, and asked him to create an illustration: a triptych showing a family at a table, with images of people helping the poor.

Cole had a thousand copies printed, with “A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year To You” printed inside, and a “To:_______” on the front so he could