Playing cards' design has always been an artist's playground
giving free play to the imagination. The oldest account of money
"paid to Jacquemin Gringonneur, painter, for three games of cards
in gold and diverse colors, ornamented with many devices"
for the amusement of French king Charles VI was recorded by
the royal treasurer in 1392


Despite any number of books devoted to playing cards, their history is
not certain. Possibly originating in China, cards were introduced to
the Western world by the Gypsies traveling from India or by the
Crusaders returning from the Middle East. It appears that cards came
to the West via Spain and were soon adopted in Italy and Germany
Called after the Latin for paper - charta -- playing cards had become
widely popular in Europe by the mid-fifteenth century and spread to
America not long after. As noted by Paul Lacroix, French researcher
of the medieval world, "when the companions of Christopher
Columbus, who had just discovered America, formed their first
settlement at St. Domingo, they almost instantly set to work,
to make playing cards out of the leaves of trees."
While the earliest surviving cards are thoroughly researched and
preserved in museum collections, artists' playing cards of our time
remain overlooked almost completely. Meanwhile, technological
advances to chromolithography, offset printing, and computer
graphics have presented artists with new design opportunities
rivaling the creative discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries.
Believing that the qualities of objects can affect the physical and
emotional conditions of human existence, and that visual
expression can be transmitted into spiritual experience, modern
artists re-invented numerous designed objects - playing cards
among them. Similarly to illustrated books and posters, cards
have been used by artists to popularize their aesthetic ideas,
to introduce new philosophies, to take up moral, social and
political problems, for advertising, and self-promotion.


The intentions of the artists searching for distinctive identity
and expressive visual language are reflected by the notable
examples of modern playing cards.

Pop-Up the window for better view
of 20th Century Artists' Playing Cards

From left to right:
1 / Jean Veram [France, 1990]
2 / David Hockney [England, 1979]
3 / Oscar Dominguez [1941]
4 / Paco Lobo [Spain, 1987]

From left to right:
5 / Arnold Schoenberg [Austria, c. 1910]
6 / Erte [France, 1949/50]
7 / Takenobu Igarashi [1993]
8 / Leonor Fini [France, 1949]

ARTS IN CARDS from left to right:
9 / LITERATURE - "Kyd" [J.Clayton Clark / England]
Pickwick / Dickens Playing Cards, c.1930
10 / OPERA - Peter Becker [Germany, 1984] Bizet's "Carmen" Ace
11 / FILM - Francois Poulain [France,1983] "The Giants of the Myth"
12 / MUSIC - Silvia Maddonni [France,1984] "Playing Musicians"

From left to right:
13 / A.M. Cassandre [France, 1949/50]
14 / MICHELIN advertising deck [c. 1970]
15 / Sonia Delaunay [1959/60]
16 / Manfred Kronenberg [Germany,1978]

MODERN TAROT from left to right:
17 / Salvador Dali Tarot Universal [Spain]
18 / Andrea Picini Tarot [Italy, 1978]
19 / Pino Settanni Tarot [Italy, 1995]
20 / Brian Williams, The PoMo Tarot / Postmodern Deck [USA, 1994]



Through all its metamorphoses, historical and artistic, the deck of
playing cards has been defined as an object belonging to the
world of things. What has fascinated and attracted many artists
in the deck of cards is the combination of the mystical
significance of an imaginary universe and symbolic expression of
a spiritual message with the practical functions of a very material
object.
In the intense and complex development of modern art,
representatives of almost every 20th Century art movement
have experimented with playing cards' design creating
contemporary visual idioms and metaphors of various stylistic
attitudes, and using imaginative combinations of compositional
principles and functional clarity for the remarkable renewal of
the traditional deck of cards.

Top of page: a/ Einar Nerman [Sweden, 1924]; b/ Renee Sturbelle [Belgium, 1960]
c/ Draeger Brothers [France, 1965]; d/ Salvador Dali [1966].

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To see nonstandard playing cards graphics and extensive links to WWW card sites

visit The Bob Lancaster Gallery of Unusual Playing Cards

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CARD ART - "Art works are not solely to be found on museum walls.
They also adorn more mundane, though perhaps no less important, props.
Like playing cards. A visual treat."
From USA TODAY Hot Sites' selection, July14,1998.
[ http://167.8.29.16/life/cyber/chb0714.htm ]

Top 101 WEB Sites -September '98.
[http://www.internetsurfer.com/sept98/sept9816.htm]

Copyright © 1996 - 1998 Albert Gimein / Updated: January - February 2000