Dali Collection at Hallmark Visitors Center

The Hallmark Visitor Center is a free museum that tells the history of the Hallmark company. In addition to providing guests an opportunity to learn about the history of greeting cards the Hallmark Visitor Center displays a fascinating collection of visual art. One of the most unusual parts of this collection is a set of 13 original works created by Salvador Dali.

In the 1940s, Hallmark began using the works of famous artists as the covers for greeting cards.

Hallmark printed greeting cards featuring the work of artists including Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh, and Georgia O’Keefe. The company even began to commission artists to create work intended for greeting cards—Grandma Moses, Norman Rockwell, and even Winston Churchill (who became a somewhat famous painter in his later years) were commissioned to create greeting card covers.

In 1948, Hallmark hired Salvador Dali to design a series of greeting card covers. Dali produced several images, but his designs were seen as too avant-garde and only two of the 1948 designs were ever used. Although Dali’s cards were not big sellers, the company hired him again in 1959 to design a completely new set of greeting cards. Besides Christmas-themed designs, Dali painted images for Valentine’s Day, Easter, and Mother’s Day. Of these newer images, only three were ever printed. Two of Dali’s works for the series, “Christmas Tree of Butterflies” and “Easter Angel” are on display at the Hallmark Visitor Center.