Americana-Themed Puzzle Art

A 1991 Americana puzzle titled "Seashore," minus two pieces

It soon becomes obvious to puzzle solvers that several common themes run through the puzzles being produced by a few dozen puzzle companies these days.  Puzzles featuring cats or dogs, nostalgic countryside settings, books and bookstores, foreign cities, cartoon settings, flowers and gardens, memorabilia, fine art, etc., seem to dominate our choices. But of all the themes prevalent today, Americana seems to be the one hardest to escape. Go to any U.S. retailer selling puzzles these days, and Americana-themed puzzles are likely to make up around 25% of what is for sale.

The video featured below helps explain the appeal of Americana style puzzles and why they have been popular for so long.  (I buy vintage puzzles when I can find them, and it is not unusual for me to find Americana pieces from the eighties and nineties.)






I enjoy the images primarily, I suppose, because their idealized take on the past makes me feel good about myself and this country and what we have accomplished.  That's likely to be the primary appeal of this kind of puzzle, of course, but as a little bonus, I'm also learning about a whole subset of artists to whose work I would otherwise never have been exposed; people like: Linda Nelson Stocks, Sheila Lee, Ellen Stouffer, Joseph Burgess, Jane Wooster Scott, and (of course) Charles Wysocki.

Generally, Americana-themed puzzles (at least to me) are a little easier to solve than a lot of other styles because of the dominance of straight lines and the clean breaks between colors that they utilize. I don't know about you guys, but I have the most trouble with subtly blended colors, and the darker those colors are, the harder the puzzle is for me to solve. I seldom have that problem with Americana.

I just took a quick look at the collection of puzzles still waiting for my attention, and I see that I have at least a dozen more Americana pieces on the shelves.  I don't know if these puzzles are sold much outside the U.S. and Canada, but they seem to do quite well here.