Vintage Tony Sarg Nantucket Roof Top Poster, circa 1930

Vintage Tony Sarg Nantucket Roof Top Poster, circa 1930, a decorative colored print by Tony Sarg (Nantucket: 1880 – 1942) depicting a Quaker family on a Nantucket roof walk overlooking a square-rigged ship in the ocean, signed lower right.

There is no text on this poster, but it was one of several created to advertise a “Nantucket Fete” held several times in the 1920s and 1930s to raise money to support the island’s Nantucket Cottage Hospital (copies would have text explaining when and where the fete was occurring).

The print is in extremely good condition, with very strong color and only one small spot with a slight dull barest of smudge –  perhaps from a water drop?

Measures: 41 in H x 31 in W

Anthony Frederick Sarg was born in Guatemala in 1880, and after living in Germany, England and New York, he purchased a house on Nantucket in 1921 with his wife and daughter (the artist Mary Sarg Murphy).

Starting as an artist for the Saturday Evening Post, he became best known as an illustrator of children’s books. He was fond of creating animal characters to both educate and entertain young readers, and was noted for his use of whimsy and humor. His books often involved moving parts, a proclivity that led to his creating a variety of toys and puzzles.

Sarg was also extremely important as the reviver of marionette theater in America. In 1935 he also designed the first animated window display for Macy’s Department Store, and continued to create new designs for their holiday windows until his death in 1942. He was also the inventor of the first hot air balloons for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

On Nantucket he opened the Tony Sarg Shop at 38 Centre Street, later relocated in 1929 to the corner of Easy Street and Steamboat Wharf where it became Tony Sarg’s Curiosity Shop. He hand crafted and sold a variety toys, puppets, prints, fabrics, wall-paper, decoupage decorated pantry boxes and other folk art. He is especially remembered on-island for his maps, posters and Nantucket theme decorated boxes.

A major collection of his work is held by the Nantucket Historical Association, and was featured in an exhibition at the Fair Street Museum in 1983. He is currently the subject of a traveling exhibit curated by the Norman Rockwell Museum which is currently on display at the Nantucket Whaling Museum.