McGill Cab Stand

Sending Christmas greetings through the mail is now a tradition. Indeed, Sir Henry Cole invented the Christmas card only three years after Sir Rowland Hill organized the first modern post office. In Canada some of the finest cards were produced in 1931. Artist A. Y Jackson had convinced William E. Coutts, the Toronto greeting card magnate, to create a contemporary series of cards in typical Canadian style. Coutts commissioned 26 Canadian artists, including members of the Group of Seven, and paid them $25 for each design. The series was an artistic success, each illustration having been reproduced by the painstaking and expensive silkscreen process. Today collectors treasure these cards, three of which are reproduced on the 1980 Christmas stamps. The original Christmas card illustration used on the 35-cent stamp is by Kathleen Morris, who was born in Montreal in 1893. She attended the school of the Art Association of Montreal and did the greatest part of her painting in her native city, where she spent most of her life. She is known for her landscapes and genre paintings and was especially fond of cityscapes of the Montreal of her childhood. For the 1931 card series she provided "McGill Cab Stand", a nostalgic view of old Montreal in winter, when all transportation, both public and private, changed from wheels to runners as soon as the first snow fell. The layout design and typography for this stamp issue were done by Yvon Laroche of Montreal.