Rapheal Tuck & Sons or 'Father Tuck' Paper Dolls

Wednesday, June 9, 2021

Rapheal Tuck & Sons or 'Father Tuck' Paper Dolls

Raphael Tuck & Sons was a business started by Raphael Tuck and his wife in Bishopsgate in the City of London in October 1866, selling pictures and greeting cards, and eventually selling postcards, which was their most successful line. Their business was one of the best known in the "postcard boom" of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Their contributions left a lasting effect on most of the artistic world. During the Blitz, the company headquarters, Raphael House, was destroyed including the originals for most of their series. The company never fully recovered.
Raphael had received training in graphic arts in his home country; also, although he was not an artist himself, he had a flair for commercial art that prompted his interest in this new field. Upon coming to England, he caught the imagination of the public in such a way that he was able to create a new graphic arts business. He was so successful at it that, according to The Times he "opened up a new field of labor for artists, lithographers, engravers, printers, ink and paste board makers, and several other trade classes". Tuck's continued to run very successful postcard competitions through the early 1900s with the focus changing to collectors of Tuck postcards rather than of postcards by the artists whose work was depicted. The top part of the 1903 Tuck Exchange Register pictured above announces the second of Tuck's prize competitions which began in 1900. The prize competitions aroused much interest. The first contest winner turned in a collection of 20,364 cards over the 18-month duration of the contest. The second prize competition winner submitted 25,239 cards. In 1914 the fourth prize competition was announced. The competitions were a novel and effective marketing technique.