Sending all my love - Vintage Postcards from the Middle East

The postcards date from 1900 to 1940 and feature motifs from North Africa, Egypt, Turkey, and the Levant. They were later collected in Paris, London and Copenhagen. Some travelled the world bearing stamps and postmarks while others were bought as souvenirs and tucked away in pockets and drawers waiting for messages that may never have been written.

The global social media of the past

Long before likes, feeds, and stories, the postcard functioned as a kind of global social media. An image and a few words could be sent to anyone, anywhere. The first postcards were issued in 1869 in Germany and Austria-Hungary, but by around 1900 the postcard had conquered much of the world. In 1909 alone, an astonishing 833 million postcards were sent in the UK.

Early postcards often featured drawn or painted motifs and short greetings such as Gruss aus Hamburg. Soon, however, the photographic postcard became dominant: a photograph on one side, and text and address on the other. The images depicted characteristic places, local traditions, or distinctive styles of dress, while the written message could confirm, distort, or play with the meaning of the image. One simple example illustrates the power of this interplay: an early postcard from Mecca, sent to France, bears only the word Bonjour. The image shows the courtyard surrounding the holy Kaaba. With minimal means, an entire story is told - and perhaps a quiet, triumphant I have arrived.

The dream of Arabia

On the displayed postcards, visitors encounter retouched and hand-coloured images of mosques, oases, dancers, and snake charmers—motifs that played into notions of an ‘exotic’ and sensuous world reminiscent of One Thousand and One Nights. The postcards were intended to evoke a dream of Arabia and undoubtedly helped shape an image of the region that was neither entirely accurate nor entirely false.

From the earliest years of the postcard, erotic motifs also circulated—from the subtly suggestive to the openly  pornographic. Many could not be sent through the mail because of legislation, yet they were nevertheless sold in large numbers, and not only in the Middle East. In Denmark, so-called ‘indecent postcards’ were confiscated around 1900.

SENDING ALL MY LOVE is a poetic and adventurous exhibition about images in motion and about how small printed cards helped shape big ideas about the world - long before the digital age. We present the exhibition at a time when postal services are undergoing significant change and the future of the postcard is uncertain- yet it still holds a place in everyone’s heart.

Visitors are welcome to take home copies of selected newly reprinted postcards, available from the two display stands in the exhibition space.

For more information or press photos please contact: [email protected]