Christmas card titled "Moor," made by Kurt Seligmann, inscribed to Amos Vogel in 1959

N.p.: N.p., 1959. Hand tinted woodcut by Kurt Seligmann in 1959 as a Christmas card, titled "Moor," SIGNED and dated in pencil by Seligmann just below the image, and further INSCRIBED to Amos Vogel: "We loved your card - with Jean Durand! / Season's greetings / Arlette and Kurt."

Kurt Leopold Seligmann (1900-1962) was a Swiss-American surrealist painter and engraver. He was known for his fantastic imagery of medieval troubadors and knights engaged in macabre rituals and inspired partially by the carnival held annually in his native Basel, Switzerland.

Amos Vogel (1921-2012) was one of the most influential cineastes in New York City. He is best known for his bestselling book "Film as a Subversive Art" (1974) and as the founder of the New York City avantgarde cine-club Cinema 16 (1947-1963), where he was the first programmer to present films by Roman Polanski, John Cassavetes, Nagisa Oshima, Jacques Rivette and Alain Resnais as well as early and important screenings by American avant-gardists of the time like Stan Brakhage, Maya Deren, James Broughton, Kenneth Anger, Sidney Peterson, Bruce Conner, Carmen D'Avino and many others. In 1963, together with Richard Roud, he founded the New York Film Festival, and served as its program director until 1968. In 1973, Vogel started the Annenberg Cinematheque at the University of Pennsylvania and was eventually given a Chair for film studies at the Annenberg School for Communication, where he taught and lectured for two decades.

8 x 7.25 inches. Several tiny pinholes in the top half of the woodcut, from the years when the card hung in Vogel's home, else Near Fine.