Vintage Marshall Gardiner Hand Colored Panoramic Postcard of Nantucket From Monomoy Shore, circa 1920s

Vintage Marshall Gardiner Hand Colored Panoramic Postcard of Nantucket From Monomoy Shore, circa 1920s, a large colored over-sized postcards showing Nantucket harbor and the town’s waterfront and skyline as seen from Monomoy, stretching from the Creeks Marsh across to beyond Brant Point, with wind mill, church towers and grand hotels looming over the cottages, titled lower center. Mounted in contemporary frame.

H. Marshall Gardiner (1884-1942) was born on September 18, 1884 in Windsor, Ontario, and immigrated to the United States circa 1890, where his father W.H. Gardiner opened two photographic studios, one in Detroit during the winter months and a second at Mackinac Island during the more tourist-oriented summer months. Recognizing the potential of Florida’s rapidly growing tourist trade, around 1894-95 he moved with his family from Detroit to Daytona, Florida which proved much more accommodating to the family’s photographic business during the colder winter months.

Marshall learned many of his photographic techniques from his father prior to going out on his own at a relatively early age. Whereas his father generally used wet collodian negatives, technology had advanced to where he was able to use gelatin dry plates in his earlier years, and later the less expensive and much more convenient roll film. Another very important lesson learned from his father was strategy of setting up shop in a tourist resort. Early in his career he traveled to Bermuda where he shot a series of beautiful Bermuda scenes that he hand-colored and successfully sold over a number of years to the local tourist trade.

Around 1910, at the age of around 24, he first traveled to the island of Nantucket. The year-round population of Nantucket was then just over 2500, not nearly enough to sustain a photographic business for the entire year, so he opened a joint Photography and Art Supplies Store. Working as Nantucket’s exclusive agent for Eastman Kodak, his business expanded to include the island’s only photo-finishing service. However, with such a small year-round population, even the addition of a Gift Shop to compliment the hand-painted photographs, general portrait & photographic services, and art supplies couldn’t sustain him on Nantucket year round, so during the winter months he continued to help with the family’s photographic businesses in Daytona and Mackinac Island. And upon his father’s death in 1935, Marshall took over the family business in Daytona on a full-time basis.

Measures: 4-1/2 in H x 32-3/4 in W
Framed: 8-1/8 in H x 36-1/2 in W