Michael Stringer with two of his hand-painted Christmas cards

The man behind the paintings: Michael Stringer, from film sets to Christmas cards

October 20, 2026

Every Christmas, my father painted a card by hand for family and friends. Not a quick sketch with a sprig of holly, but a whole scene: carol singers beneath the lit windows of a manor house, a coaching inn on a snowy evening, a pantomime cast taking their bow. For more than twenty years I have kept a box of those cards.

This year, I decided they deserved more than a drawer. Painted Memories is how I'm sharing them. Before you choose one, I'd like you to meet the man who painted them.

A life spent building worlds

Michael Stringer was born in Singapore in 1924. He spent his working life in film as an art director and production designer.

If you have never come across the job, a production designer is responsible for how a film looks. The director tells the story; the production designer builds the world it happens in. Every street, room, village and landscape the camera sees starts as a drawing on their desk, and is then built, dressed and sometimes conjured out of a completely different country.

That last part was something of a speciality of my father's.

Disney, Fiddler on the Roof and an Oscar nomination

Early in his career, he worked as an art director on Disney films including Greyfriars Bobby (1961), In Search of the Castaways (1962) and The Three Lives of Thomasina (1963). Years later he returned for One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing (1975).

The film he is best known for is Fiddler on the Roof (1971). Much of it was shot in Yugoslavia, where he recreated a Ukrainian Jewish village for the story of Tevye and his daughters. That work earned him an Academy Award nomination for art direction, shared with Robert Boyle and Peter Lamont.

From the Pink Panther to Sherwood Forest

His career took him through some wonderfully varied films. He was production designer on A Shot in the Dark (1964), the Pink Panther comedy starring Peter Sellers, and later on Inspector Clouseau (1968). The same year as A Shot in the Dark came the wartime drama 633 Squadron, and in 1967 he designed the sets for the riotous James Bond spoof Casino Royale.

For Robin and Marian (1976), he recreated Sherwood Forest in Spain. In 1980 came Agatha Christie's The Mirror Crack'd, and in 1983 a version of The Hound of the Baskervilles starring Ian Richardson. Along the way he worked with directors including John Huston and Fred Zinnemann.

He also cared about the craft itself. He served as President of the Guild of Film Art Directors, now the British Film Designers Guild, and contributed to a textbook on the subject, Film Design, published in 1974. Away from the cinema, he designed for the stage too, including productions of The Tempest and Brecht's Galileo at the Mermaid Theatre in London.

Painter and storyteller

My father never stopped drawing for its own sake. He wrote and illustrated two children's books, The Magic Carpet Adventure and Baron Battleaxe and the Magic Carpet. In later life he stepped away from films and devoted himself to painting.

He died in Eastbourne in 2004.

Why these cards matter to me

When I look at his Christmas cards, I see the film designer in every one. Each is a set waiting for its scene: lanterns lit, snow on the rooftops, a robin keeping watch from a chimney, children pressed against frosted windows. Nothing is there by accident. He knew exactly where your eye would land, and he filled every corner with something worth finding.

For me, these designs are far more than cards. They are part of his legacy, and sharing them means his creativity and love of storytelling can keep bringing joy to other people, just as they always have for me.

The cards

Each design is a 3D cut-out card, 21.5cm x 17.5cm, printed in the UK and supplied with an envelope. Mix and match any designs: buy 3 and save 10%, 5 and save 15%, or 7 and save 25%.