After a recent post about Chocolate Box Ladies – a nickname for those women artists who painted images for postcards but that could equally well be used for jigsaws or chocolate boxes – this week I’m turning my attention to their males equivalents – Chocolate Box Gentlemen.
The growth in postcard publishing provided work for a wide range of competent [and sometimes maybe not quite so competent] artists, because on average two million cards were posted every day between 1900 and 1910 and so unsurprisingly there was continual pressure for suitable new pictures .
While I suspect there were more women doing this work, there were certainly quite a few men who made a good living out of it as well, while others added postcards as a sideline to their more mainstream work. Can you spot any major differences in style with their female counterparts?
Following on from last week’s history of the crocus this week’s going to look at the man who really popularised them in Britain. Edward Augustus Bowles -“Gussie” or “Bowlesy” to his friends – was one of the 20th century’s great gardeners. Largely self-taught he was an accomplished artist, entomologist and botanist and an entertaining and knowledgeable writer who travelled widely with many eminent plant hunters of the day including his good friend, the plant hunter Reginald Farrer, who called him both “Little Father Augustus” and “The Crocus King”.
The Garden History Blog 
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