Every year, modernist Eric Thake would send his friends a hand-made Christmas card. Original linocut prints, these cards have since become canonical, each observing a changing nation through one its most distinct voices. There are notes of humour, critique and poeticism.

The second card Thake sent, ‘Then wrought a tomb and slept’ (1942) is wonderfully whimsical. He imagines a chrysalis as a coffin, turning the caterpillar into Dracula while nearby, another caterpillar in a basket recalls rock-a-by-baby. A master of the unexpected, Thake saw wit and surrealism in moments great and small.

Represented across numerous public collections, including at the National Gallery of Victoria, this is a museum-quality work. It speaks to Thake’s remarkable wit and ingenuity, a prize for collectors of modernist, surrealist and Australian art. 

Eric THAKE (1904 - 1982)
'Then wrought a tomb and slept' 1942
linocut on paper
Image Size: 17 x 13 cm
Dimensions: 17 x 26 cm overall sheer size, scored to fold
Signed: Signed and dated lower right: Eric Thake 1942; titled lower left: Then wrought a tomb and slept
Comes with Letter of Provenance

Impressions of this work are at:
Art Gallery of New South Wales, accession number: DA40.1967
National Gallery of Australia, accession number: 73.257.2
National Gallery of Victoria, accession number: P114-1974

No inscription in card.

Condition: Excellent

© The Artist or Assignee