Merry Christmas! From now until the end of the year I am going to do a series of Christmas-related art, since I have a bunch of it pulled. Our first artist is Sulamith Wülfing, a German illustrator I have been fascinated with ever since I first encountered her work in a Bud Plant catalog several years ago. Her work is romantic and spiritual in nature and highly decorative, drawing from traditions of art nouveau and the fairy tale illustrators of both the Victorian era and her own early twentieth century era.
Wülfing, the daughter of Theosophist parents, led an interesting life right from the get-go. She, like William Blake (another artist she draws inspiration from), claimed that as a child she could see all sorts of creatures and beings invisible to others, such as angels, fairies and sprites. These experiences would inform her art for the rest of her life. Although much of her work was destroyed during WWII when a bomb struck her Wuppertal home, she managed to stay artistically productive and created and published hundreds of pieces before she died, no small feat considering the amount of detail she put into each work.
The artist clearly adored holidays, Christmas in particular, as she generated several Christmas-themed pieces. Here are a few . . .
Sulamith Wülfing – Christmas Swing
Sulamith Wülfing – Little Gerda
Sulamith Wülfing – Crown of Light
Sulamith Wülfing – The Great Ball
Sulamith Wülfing – Untitled