As it so happens in the world of shop-keeping, certainly our line of shop-keeping, is that we're routinely introduced to and become engrossed in the most unsuspecting and thrilling subjects of peoples lives. Take 'Kasmin's Postcards' collection of books for example. Our friend and gallerist, Lyndsey Ingram introduced Ben to her longtime friend and mentor, famous art dealer and treasure of the art world, John Kasmin some weeks ago to talk art. Ben bought back a handful of interesting looking books saying something along the lines of, "We're all going to Kasmin's for supper one day in his amazing house of collections and in the meantime he wondered if we might sell these books for him?" "Let's give them a go!" I said.
Fast forward to three weeks later and I'm tasked with uploading nearly two dozen of these books onto the website, reading snippets when I can and wondering, What are these all about? Where have they come from? "Kas is one of the greatest collectors of postcards in the world!" Lyndsey tells me. "Leonard Lauder, son of Estee Lauder, is actually the biggest collector in the world and one year older than me. And he started when he was 12", Kasmin himself (turning 90 next week), tells me this morning when I had him on the phone to find out more myself.
Kas said he started collecting old postcards when abroad back in the 60’s and 70’s and once home would project them onto the wall using a magic lantern, then dream about the wonder and enchantment of foreign faraway lands, usually after smoking an interesting cigarette.
When the Dealing in Cultural Objects Act of 2003 was introduced restricting the import and export on the cultural objects he had been previously interested in collecting, postcards then became serious for him as he began to really discover the range and depth of their subject matter.
We could have spoken for hours and I really wish we had. To put it in this nutshell of a newsletter we learn - The great heyday of postcards was between 1905 – 1912 once a law had been changed letting the senders message and address be allowed to be written on the same side of the card. Before this it was considered to be 'testing the good behaviour 'of the postman, could he be trusted to mind your business if it was writ large next to the address? When it was decided he could, the whole one side of the postcard could be dedicated to an image and photographers went berserk with their ideas, capturing people and their livelihoods, documenting the social history of the time. Suddenly people who had never communicated with each other could do so for pennies. Messages were short, domestic details normally. They were sent in their hundreds of millions. Sounds familiar and 100 years before the social media we know today.
There is so much to share about the history of postcards. Kasmin has created and self-published this thoroughly unique and considered collection of books that he is sure will entertain you. They are each drawn from picture postcards of about 100 years ago and each book contains about 100 images showing: Aspects of Being Human - such as Amusing others, Carrying unlikely things, Getting old, Inhabiting various body shapes, Being a child, Encountering disasters, Dealing with the growth of hair, Making food from animals, Washing clothes & bedding, Making pictures of each other, Liking curious things, Appearing to read all sorts of texts, Viewing life in the United States of America, Selling all sorts of things in market-places and Doing delicate work with one’s hands.
Meat and Burden are two of his fondest publications as he said, "Some of these books subjects won’t have been written about before".
Each book opens with an essay written by Kas on it’s subject and captions for each image can be found at the back, but the images of the postcards themselves can be enjoyed as they are.
We ended our conversation agreeing the book on ‘Shopfront’s will be my favourite and that these are a perfect thing to be bought to take to some kind friends house when they have invited you around for dinner.
We are sure you will agree and trust you have enjoyed this story and will enjoy taking a look through the collection yourselves.
Thank you for letting me share it!
Bridie
