Tacita Dean raids the past for her Christmas wrapping paper design

Tacita Dean

Tuesday, 20 Dec 2011

Continuing our series of Christmas wrapping paper designed especially for the Guardian by leading artists, Tacita Dean reveals how she reused an antique postcard

• Download and print Tacita Dean's wrapping paper

This is from my found postcard collection. It's over 100 years old and German. I overpainted the Prosit Neujahr (Happy New Year) at the bottom, and painted on the red Santa hat. I like it because it doesn't really work. She looks rather uncomfortable at that angle, holding her arm up like that.

I overpaint postcards from my collection a lot. I'm not sure this sums up Christmas, but a lot of trouble went into constructing this photograph all those years ago: the backdrop, the snow – which I think must have been hand-painted black flecks on the original negative. I enjoy the artifice and invention of the pre-digital world.

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Tacita Dean

Tuesday, 20 Dec 2011

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