As a child, I’d “help” each year when my mother pulled out calligraphy pens and ink, drawing her own holiday cards. John H. Jewett drew the image seen here, offering “Christmas Greetings.”
It’s easy for me to imagine Jewett working with similar inks and pens to create this image of a townhouse covered in snow, glowing with warm light inside. The original drawing shows the fine line work and attention to detail in blue and yellow inks.
John Howard Jewett, who was known as Jack, was born in 1902 to Maude Sherwood Jewett, a sculptor, and her husband, Edward Hull Jewett, a stockbroker. They were longtime East Hampton summer residents, with a home known as “The Inkpot” on Apaquogue Road.
After attending Princeton, Jack Jewett entered Columbia University’s school of architecture in 1923. He later designed houses and the beach pavilions and cabanas of the Maidstone Club. He traveled west to Arizona and California in the later part of the 1930s. During World War II, he worked with other architects designing military facilities, including Camp Callan in La Jolla, Calif.
Perhaps most surprising is that the creator of this lovely winter scene called California home for most of the rest of his life, returning to East Hampton for summers and social events. Despite the distance, Jewett frequently wrote to The East Hampton Star, often sharing his memories of days past.
His architectural training is evident in this holiday greeting, with the detailed windows, cornices, and pediments on the buildings. The image is undated, but there are some details about Jewett’s life that may allow us to narrow down when he would have drawn it. His obituary notes that he didn’t begin drawing or sketching until the Depression, when he traveled extensively in Europe.
Jewett died in 1986 and was buried in the family plot at Cedar Lawn Cemetery.
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Andrea Meyer, a librarian and archivist, is the head of the Long Island Collection at the East Hampton Library.
