Merry and bright: Hilbert Museum opens Christmas card designs by Ralph Hulett
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A Christmas tree lights up the Burra Family community room at the Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University in Orange, a festive touch added to a special exhibition.
“Merry and Bright: Christmas Card Designs by Ralph Hulett,” features the mid-century modern Christmas card art of the California scene painter and Disney artist. Hulett designed a series of greeting cards for the Designers Showcase Co. in the 1950s, and his hand-painted art fills the walls with holiday cheer.
“What drew me to these first of all, was the mid-century modern pizzazz of them. That era of art has come back in a big way,” said Hilbert Museum director, Mary Platt, who also curated the exhibition. “Now you can get a whole Christmas tree that is midcentury with the little bubble lights and everything.”
Hulett studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, later known as CalArts, an institution that became a pipeline of sorts to Disney Studios.
“Disney saw his talent and plucked him right out as a student, and he started working on the very first Disney full-length animated feature, ‘Snow White,’ in 1937,” said Platt. “He worked on every Disney feature while Walt was alive, everything up through ‘The Jungle Book’ in 1967, and I believe his last one was ‘Robin Hood.’”
Hulett wasn’t an animator or a character artist; his specialty lay in scenery and backgrounds. Mark Hilbert and his wife, Janet, the founders of the Hilbert Museum, collect Disney animation art and keep some beautiful background pieces in their collection. However, it can be hard to properly credit their creators.
“Those artists at Disney worked collaboratively, and they wouldn’t sign their name, so it is hard nowadays to easily identify a Ralph Hulett background,” said Platt.
Many artists during the Great Depression went to work for the movie industry, but at heart Hulett was a fine art watercolorist. As a member of the American Watercolor Society and California Water Color Society he painted California scenes that documented the changing landscape and also did oil paintings of historic parts of Los Angeles, particularly Bunker Hill. Guests can find more of his work within the permanent collection of California life at the Hilbert. Hulett also found additional streams of revenue doing commercial work, like greeting card designs.
Like most modern Christmas traditions, Christmas cards can be traced back to Queen Victoria and the practice has evolved from the elaborate Victorian-style greetings to the simple post card to Hallmark Cards, founded in 1913. By the 1950s, the art associated with holiday cards was no longer limited to religious imagery, and humorous, cartoon illustrations became popular.
“Card companies were hiring many of the great illustrators of the day to do their cards,” said Platt.
Hulett’s cards feature whimsical visuals, a reindeer with a string of lights and a banner that reads “Noel” strung between its enormous antlers, or a Santa Claus riding a roller coaster with his eight reindeer in the train cars behind him.
“Even though he wasn’t a character designer, I think he well could have been,” said Platt, pointing out his paintings of cherubic children bundled up for the winter. Other paintings feature the graceful silhouette of two ice skaters or the warm smile of jolly St. Nick.
There are also examples that showcase Hulett’s skill with scenery in landscape paintings like “Footprints in the Snow” where the viewer can trace the tracks of two alert deer through the snow-covered forest as they come upon a warmly lit cabin in the woods.
Siamese cats were also a popular subject for Hulett. The breed was en Vogue in the ’50s and ’60s, and the slinky cats with trademark blue eyes can be seen batting Christmas tree ornaments or cuddling under the mistletoe in his work. Hulett’s family owned Siamese cats as well, which afforded him many opportunities to study their movements and personalities.
While Hulett did create backgrounds for “Lady and the Tramp” he didn’t contribute to the twin cat characters, Si and Am in the movie. Regarded as problematic today because of their association with racial stereotypes of Asians, Si and Am were developed by Ward Kimball and Milt Kahl and animated by Bob Carlson, Bill Justice and John Sibley.
Hulett’s cats are a little less mischievous; a Siamese kitten, for example, peeks out of a red stocking in a piece titled “Cat in Stocking” from Platt’s own private collection.
“I am a cat person, and I grew up with Siamese cats, they have a very particular personality and they are very talkative,” said Platt.
On Dec. 12 at 6 p.m. Platt will give an art talk at the museum about the exhibition, sharing more about Hulett’s history.
Besides having a personal connection to the art work, Platt said the exhibition is well-suited for the Hilbert Museum, which tends to focus on what has become widely known as narrative art. Paintings with people in them (or the case of Hulett, cats and other characters) encourage a story line.
“That is what we are at heart; we are a storytelling museum,” Platt said.
“Merry and Bright: Christmas Card Designs by Ralph Hulett” is on view at the Hilbert Museum of California Art at 167 N. Atchison St. in Orange through Jan. 11. To be notified about tickets for Mary Platt’s art talk, join the Hilbert Museum mailing list by visiting hilbertmuseum.org.
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