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Tag Archives: Indian culture

Bēhance: “Indianie” (Indian) Playing Cards by Katarzyna Fus

Hardly these playing cards can be practical in their current form, but I couldn’t omit them. Created by a Polish artist, Katarzyna Fus, these are really cute pieces of art devoted to Indian culture. I really like her style for this prototype deck. Court cards represent people. Totem (a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serve as an emblem of a group of people) is in the aces. Number cards and the back design contain imitation of some petroglyphs (arrows and horses). Unfortunately, all number cards have only different appropriate quantity of arrows in their pictures.

Playing cards haven’t been produced. I think they will become more functional with white frameworks around the coloured pictures. Letters and numbers of cards can be also moved outside the pictures. Horses are better to use for number cards instead of backs. Tomahawks (a type of axe from North America) and calumets (a ceremonial smoking pipe used by some indigenous American nations) can vary pictures of number cards of different suits. Different totems for aces will be also nice.

© Katarzyna Fus 2013

Indian Playing Cards by Katarzyna Fus

Indian-Playing-Cards-by-Katarzyna-Fus-Number-Cards

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Bēhance: East Indian Playing Cards by Lucy Aldrich

04 Nov

This set of playing cards (just an art project) with an East Indian twist was designed by the American artist, Lucy Aldrich. It’s a pity that court cards of different suits repeat each other.

© Lucy Aldrich 2013

A bird can represent a number of different ideas and concepts (conjugal happiness, heaven and infinity, etc.) in Indian culture. It’s hard to say what bird is depicted on the Joker. Peacock is one of symbols of India, actually. But it isn’t a peacock on the picture. Let’s assume that it is some parrot. Parrots are a sign of fertility

East Indian Playing Cards: Joker

East-Indian-Playing-Cards-by-Lucy-Aldrich-Joker

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Printissa: Kashmir Playing Cards

18 Jul

This deck was printed by Printissa (Saint Petersburg, Russia) in 2005. It was extremely limited run of 500 copies.

I am not absolutely sure but as I know Printissa was a collective of former employees of the Colour Printing Plant (1817-2004). The Colour Printing Plant had the same historic meaning for the Russian Empire, the USSR and Russia as the United States Playing Card Company had (has) for the United States. But while USPCC was and is mainly concentrated on playing cards for casinos and magicians/cardists, doesn’t have a lot of really and fully custom decks, CPP was mainly concentrated on fully custom artistic decks.

There are several notes about CPP’s decks on pages of this blog. Unfortunately CCP was closed in 2004. Several former employees organized Printissa and tried to go on with artistic decks. They printed several interesting decks. The company was reorganized into RusJoker (Saint Petersburg, Russia) in 2006. The last one was closed in 2008.

These playing cards were designed by Lev Liberman. As you can see Printissa kept the best traditions of CCP in designing of playing cards. The deck is dedicated to the north-western region of the Indian subcontinent – Kashmir. It is also called the Heaven on Earth because of its natural widespread beauty. So this deck is Lev’s artistic vision of Kashmir.

The deck: 52 playing cards + 2 Jokers. Bridge size.