Christmas Card 1946 1946

Adja Yunkers made this Christmas card in 1946 using woodcut on paper. In the wake of the Second World War, it seems almost impossible to believe in the clean simplicity of traditional Christmas iconography. Born in Latvia in 1900, Yunkers had lived in Berlin and Paris before immigrating to the United States in 1947. He became part of a community of artists working in New York who had been displaced by the war. This print, made the year before his move, seems haunted by European Expressionism and Cubism. Rather than a cozy scene, it depicts two figures huddled together under the shelter of a large, tent-like form, with a dark background looming over them. Is this the Holy Family, or simply two people seeking protection from the storm? As art historians, we can look to the graphic traditions of Northern and Eastern Europe to understand how Yunkers adapted such images to his own vision. Only by understanding the social conditions of its making can we begin to decode the unsettling message of this Christmas card.