Surma bookstore in New York, NY, owned and run by the Surmach family, was one of the earliest and best known producers of pysanka supplies, including dyes and styluses. Yaroslava Surmach wrote the chapter on pysanky for the “Ukrainian Arts” book; it was later reprinted as a booklet which is still available and quite useful.
They also produced the oldest pysanka post cards in my collection. These are four series of cards that were printed in the 1960s and 1970s. They have six pysanky per card, and a mix of fairly simple to quite complex patterns. Some of the simple patterns are traditional ones, which I didn’t know at the time. Most (but not ll) of the complex ones are diasporan designs.
The cards were available in both regular postcard size, and in a large 6” by 9” format. My collection is a mix of the two; I have all the small format cards, and some of the large format cards.
If you compare the cards pictured here to those in the albums of my “Modern” pysanky, you’ll recognize quite a few–these cards were my “design book” when I was learning the art of pysankarstvo.
If you can find copies of these cards tucked away in some old Ukrainian shop., I would urge you to buy them–the patterns are lovely and quite worth making. Surma still has a few sets of their out-of-print cards available and for sale, namely Series II and IV (large format). It’s worth checking their catalog and ordering them.
BLUE Cards: "Series I"
(a set of 4 design cards)
Copyright MCMLXXIV (1974)
Surma Book and Music Store New York, Made in U.S.A.
(Printed In Color)
YELLOW Cards:“Series II”
(A set of 5 design cards)
Surma Book And Music Co., New York
MCMLXXIV 1974
(Printed In Color)
GREEN Cards: “Series III”
(A set of 5 design cards)
Surma Book and Music Co., New York
MCM,
(Printed In Color)
PURPLE cards: “Series IV”
(A set of 5 design cards--extra large size, 6" by 9")
Surma Book and Music Co., New York
MCMLXIX 1969,
(Printed In Color)
(To get a better view of any card, double-click on it.)
