About This Image

Signed and titled on verso. Inscribed: "perfectly straight shot taken with a ultra wide angle lens."

This image is an exhibition print, significantly larger than the original Christmas card

McBean, a singular talent in 20th-century portraiture, was known for his unique ability to incorporate surrealist elements into complex, highly crafted compositions in which no detail was left untouched.

In this 1961 Christmas card, McBean sits at a distance. Large wooden numbers of the date are shot in a perspecival line from the foreground to McBean in the background. This is a variant of the 1961 card.

The Gernsheims were early collectors and strong fans of McBean's work, and he is highlighted in "The Gernsheim Collection, Harry Ransom Center," University of Texas Press, Austin, 2010, page 300.