Vintage 1960s postcards - kitsch kitten and daisies!

 

Remember when I used to scan stuff I’d found in antique shops? Let me remind you.

Anyway I’m up to it again, starting with this kitsch gem ‘Kitten in the Rose Bower’ photo above by Guy Withers! It’s a J. Arthur Dixon postcard and I think it’s from around 1965 (based on the one below I found with a dated stamp).

Fluffy animal and fake tree branches - what’s not to love?!

 

And another colourful and kitsch J. Arthur Dixon postcard I found in the same antique shop (I know, my hobbies are thrilling)! This one had a stamp on the back from 1965 along with the message:

 

"Thank you so much for sending us Contact. It is most interesting as usual. We are getting straight. With difficulty I at last got rid of some of the furniture and the Bristol furniture looks very nice in its place."

 

Other people’s mail woohoo. The flowers are Barberton Daisies, a wild South African species famed for their varied and attractive colours. Very bright, very 60s…

Middle-class voting in the 1950s.

Oh joy, more Picture Post scans. This makes me laugh but I'm not sure why; I think it's the "characters".

I'd say Independent Spinster was having the most fun, what is Nonconformist Minister's problem do you think? Doctor looks like he's about to diagnose something embarrassing and fatal.

Two photos of tragic children.

“In a British war cemetery, a child stands by the grave of her father, who was killed in action before she was born.”

Photographed by John Chillingworth. 

“Rachamin Hadini, aged three and a half, has been a polio victim since his first birthday. Helped by arm supports, he has slowly learned to feed himself - and is proud of his new skill.”

Photograph supplied by the World Health Organisation.

Beans win races, ice cream is rectangular.

Some more scans from my beloved 1950s Picture Post, this time advertising foooood.

Farting his way across the finish line, well done Tim!

That’s nice to know!

These are the happiest and most obnoxiously bright of the Picture Post adverts I’ve scanned, it’s all graves and crying children (I’m serious!) from here on. This one does kind of make me fancy an ice cream though. Just not a weird rectangular one.

Enrica Soma photographs.

Enrica Soma, photographed mid-1940s by Philippe Halsman.

I seem to post a lot about ballet. Mostly coincidental, the magazine I’m taking my scans from seems to be ballerina themed! Were they the favoured celebrities of their time I wonder…

‘Ricky Soma through the Ages’, photographed by Philippe Halsman as a renaissance painting, rococo courtesan and modern professional.

The article is a little tragic. According to Picture Post, Enrica was a dancer, and after becoming the face of Life magazine she trained to be an actress but was never actually filmed by the director paying her. These photos were then shown to director John Huston, who said he "liked her figure" and instead of getting a lead part, she became his fourth wife and mother of his children.

One of which is Anjelica Huston (90s Morticia Addams!), so at least her next generation got to act I guess. Hmm.

Vintage postcards of mysterious men.

In the meantime, here are some sexy vintage postcards of mysterious men that I found.

Picture Post front cover, May 1955.

What a gem, I'll be posting more scans from this!