PPM revisits Manchester's Belle Vue amusement park - Picture ...

THE SWEDISH ART
DECO ARTIST EINAR
NERMAN
continued from page 33
and usually doesn’t cost
more than a few pounds in
second-hand book stores.
(Try eBay or abebooks.com,
you won’t regret it). It also
contains a brief but very
informative foreword by
Sandy Wilson (from which
I’ve learned many of the
Published by Axel Eliasson
(above) New
Year postcard
(right) Miniature
New
Year card
details of Nerman’s life).
In 1930 Nerman again
returned to Sweden with his
wife and three children and
might have stayed there for
good if not for the outbreak
of World War II, which
prompted him to leave his
home country once again,
this time for New York,
where he spent the next ten
years sketching the Hollywood
greats for the New
York Journal American. (A
book with his drawings of
film stars from that period
appeared in 1946 under the
apt title Caricature). The
remaining years of his long
life, from 1950 to 1983, he
spent in Sweden, where
today he, rather sadly,
seems to be chiefly remembered
for his design of the
Solstickan matchbox, even
though in 2005 Sweden
honoured Greta Garbo on
the 100th anniversary of
her birth with a special
stamp showing one of the
caricatures that Nerman
made of her. There are
many reasons, however,
for remembering Nerman.
Beside creating
thousands of caricatures
of famous actors, film
stars and artists, that are
still as fresh as they were
eighty years ago, Nerman
illustrated several children’s
books, among them
Hans Christian Andersen’s
fairy tales (The Swine
Herd, and Thumbelina in
the 1930s), the stories of
Selma Lagerlöf (author of
the wonderful Adventures
of Nils Holgersson), an
enchanting picture book
Another
Eliassonsp
u b -
lished
postcard
called Journey to Gingerbread
Land (1942), the collection
Fairy Tales from the
North (1946), and a marvellously
inventive book
crammed with puzzles, riddles,
songs and games for
children, called Let’s Play
(1946). He also wrote songs
and composed music, most
notably for his older brother,
the socialist leader Ture
Nerman’s (1886-1969)
poems.
Last, but not least, of
course, he designed a vast
number of postcards, most
of them in the Art Deco
style, characterised by
heavily stylised human figures
and clearly demarcated
bright colour fields.
But although he had an
unmistakable liking for
geometrical forms and
symmetries, his work
never appears
mechanical. In contrast
to many other postcard
artists who are
classified as “Art
Deco”, he didn’t care
much for romantic and
glamour subjects, and
many of his designs
have a wit and humour that
gives them their particular
charm and saves them
from the artificiality and
lifelessness to which other
popular Art Deco artists
too easily succumbed.
They are, in short, truly
and utterly enjoyable.
Left: Classic Nerman
design
Nerman’s version of St George and the Dragon
34 Picture Postcard Monthly July 2010