Happy holidays from the Hammer Museum! Over the next two weeks, we will be sharing holiday-themed artworks for the #HammerHolidays.
Deer have been a part of the holiday tradition for centuries. We are most familiar with the reindeer, who are famous for leading Santa’s sleigh. Everyone knows the Christmas icon and “most famous reindeer of all,” Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. But it is lesser known that deer were part of the holiday tradition long before Rudolph went down in history. In the Shaman and Pagan Christmas tradition, a female reindeer is the goddess of the winter solstice. She leads and protects herds, and she keeps her horns unlike other female deer. She is also referred to as a life-giver and a mother-earth figure. Before Rudolph’s rise to fame, a deer goddess was a female Christmas figure who represented power and protection.
Woodrow Wilson Crumbo, Deer and Snow, 20th century. Etching and aquatint. Plate: 5 1/2 x 4 in. (14 x 10.2 cm) Sheet: 7 1/4 x 6 1/4 in. (18.4 x 15.9 cm). Collection UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, Hammer Museum.