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The Bristol Pack

Published February 07, 2021 Updated May 16, 2022

The Bristol Pack, an exhibition of playing cards designed by Bristol artists, 2005.

2005 United Kingdom Collaborative Pop Culture Postmodern

The Bristol Pack came out from a joint exhibition of playing cards illustrated by different artists and craftspeople which was launched at Centrespace Gallery in Bristol in 2005. Deploying a broad range of styles and techniques, each artist designed one single card from the pack, which then was produced and marketed as a whole. Each card is a blank canvas, with no constraints such as borders or indices, and this has resulted in an eclectic mixture of interpretations! See the Box

The Bristol Pack, an exhibition of playing cards designed by Bristol artists, 2005 The Bristol Pack, an exhibition of playing cards designed by Bristol artists, 2005 The Bristol Pack, an exhibition of playing cards designed by Bristol artists, 2005 The Bristol Pack, an exhibition of playing cards designed by Bristol artists, 2005 The Bristol Pack, an exhibition of playing cards designed by Bristol artists, 2005 The Bristol Pack, an exhibition of playing cards designed by Bristol artists, 2005

Above: cards from the Bristol Pack, a collaborative pack of playing cards designed by Bristol artists, 2005.

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By Rex Pitts (1940-2021)

Member since January 30, 2009

Rex's main interest was in card games, because, he said, they were cheap and easy to get hold of in his early days of collecting. He is well known for his extensive knowledge of Pepys games and his book is on the bookshelves of many.

His other interest was non-standard playing cards. He also had collections of sheet music, music CDs, models of London buses, London Transport timetables and maps and other objects that intrigued him.

Rex had a chequered career at school. He was expelled twice, on one occasion for smoking! Despite this he trained as a radio engineer and worked for the BBC in the World Service.

Later he moved into sales and worked for a firm that made all kinds of packaging, a job he enjoyed until his retirement. He became an expert on boxes and would always investigate those that held his cards. He could always recognize a box made for Pepys, which were the same as those of Alf Cooke’s Universal Playing Card Company, who printed the card games. This interest changed into an ability to make and mend boxes, which he did with great dexterity. He loved this kind of handicraft work.

His dexterity of hand and eye soon led to his making card games of his own design. He spent hours and hours carefully cutting them out and colouring them by hand.


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