POSTCARDS WITH HER PHOTOS

Josefina Oliver’s postcards contain a great deal of creative work. She buys postcards in photography shops, little cardboards in plain colours with their reverses ready to be written for mailing, where she sticks her best illuminated copies.

She also uses artistic emulsified papers with kitsch motifs such as painters’ palettes, rhombuses or hearts where she develops her shots and generates new framings. She assembles these works on postcards and after writing the text, she completes a self cosmos to be sent by mail.

‘On coming back home I stopped at the postcards shop in Ayacucho St, I bought plain postcards to stick photographs on and some books (…)’ Diary 4, p.070, 20 feb 1906

Josefina’s wish to show her work leads her to compose hundreds of these little works which she bestows upon her friends and relatives. Since 1901, this personal want is reinforced with the worldwide fashion of postcard exchange. These postcards have great printing quality and are half the cost of a letter.

‘(…) When the fury of collecting postcards, when my corresponsals, which were many and from all over the world, asked me for my portrait I used to send them this photo. - 1900 to 1904 – I collected more than 5 thousand postcards (…)’ Diary 18, photo 017, June 1952