Photographer Ed Wheeler has been dressing up as Jolly Ol’ Saint Nick and inserting himself into great works of art since 2013. As Father Christmas, Wheeler makes an appearance in paintings by such masters as Rembrandt, Manet, Matisse, Rousseau, Homer, David and many more.
Santa Inserted Into Famous Paintings
above: Wheeler puts himself dressed as Santa into Johannes Vermeer’s The Art of Painting
The collection, Santa Classics, is created in a multi-step process so the integration is somewhat seamless. Matching the lighting, brushstrokes and tonal values of the selected work, his intent is to pay homage to the original paintings while offering art lovers an additional reason to smile.
Of course there are the expected – The Birth of Venus, The Creation of Adam, Luncheon On The Grass, Dogs Playing Poker, etc. The collection is quite large now, but here are a some of my favorites.
Caspar David Friedrich’s The Wanderer:
Rene Magritte’s Golconda:
Winslow Homer’s The Gulf Stream:
Rembrandt’s The Jewish Bride:
Edouard Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergere:
Toulouse Lautrec’s At the Moulin Rouge:
Auguste Renoir’s The Large Bathers:
Hiroshige’s Visitors to the Shiba Jingu Palace:
Henri Matisse’s The Dance:
Edvard Munch’s The Scream:
Gerome’s Pygmalion and Galatea:
Brown’s Romeo & Juliet:
De la Tour’s The Education of the Virgin:
And some of the more expected ones mentioned above.
Botticelli’s Birth Of Venus:
Manet’s Luncheon On The Grass:
Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam:
Coolidge’s A Friend In Need (aka Dogs Playing Poker)
And, of course, Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks:
at top: Henri Rousseau’s The Dream
A few of his pieces are available as greeting cards from the Philadelphia Museum of Art
See new and more of Ed Wheeler’s Santa Classics here
About Ed Wheeler (from his site):
For the past thirty years, Ed has photographed people, places and things for some of the most important corporations in America. He is comfortable with the CEO whose only got ten minutes, the machine operator who has turned metal since high school, and the four year old with less patience than the CEO.
Rare is the person who is excited about standing in front of the camera, but Ed has coaxed the best out of the most reluctant. He is the kind of person you want to represent you to your top executives, your important clients, your board of directors. Ed was educated at the Wharton School of Business, born to an old Philadelphia family, and no part of his body is pierced by jewelry.
Ed can take a location that resembles the Dark Ages and make it look like tomorrow. He has an eye that can tell the story and hide the flaws. He has shot in a coal mine two miles down, a helicopter 2,000 feet up, on an oil rig far out to sea, and on top of Mt. Whitney. He has shot in 35 countries on five continents. He has learned to work through the barriers of language, culture and politics. He can even drive on the left hand side of the road.