Garfield Event Card - Fraternal Exaltation

Fraternal Exaltation was designed by Richard Garfield (the designer of Magic: The Gathering) as a celebration of the birth of his second child, his son Schuyler. Richard distributed copies of this card to family, friends, and select business colleagues. It is estimated that approximately 200 copies of Fraternal Exaltation were given to Richard by the printer, Carta Mundi, but it is not known how many of these were distributed. 

Richard asked his sister, artist and graphic designer Susan Garfield, to create the illustration for Fraternal Exaltation. Susan’s painting draws some of its inspiration from the T. S. Eliot poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” but is also rife with personal references. The four plates on the table, for example, represent the size of Richard’s family after the arrival of his son. And the mismatched socks are a nod to one of Richard’s lifelong quirks, never wearing matching socks. Richard keeps all his socks mixed together and has said that on the rare occasion when he pulls out two matching socks he pulls out a third one and throws one of the matching pair back.