H Marshall Gardiner – Hand-Colored Photographs
H. Marshall Gardiner (1884-1942) was born on September 18, 1884 into a photographic family led by his father, W.H. Gardiner. Seemingly some resources checklist his first name as “Harry“, other sources record him as “Henry“. Born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada his relatives immigrated to the United States circa 1890. At the time the household was settled W.H. Gardiner opened two photographic studios, 1 in Detroit, Michigan through the wintertime months and a second at Mackinac Island, Michigan throughout the extra tourist-oriented summer time months. Recognizing the probable of Florida’s promptly increasing vacationer trade, all-around 1894-95 H. Marshall Gardiner moved with his spouse and children from Detroit to Daytona, Florida which proved a lot a lot more accommodating to the family’s photographic small business throughout the colder wintertime months.
H. Marshall Gardiner figured out many of his photographic techniques from his father prior to heading out on his own at a rather early age. Whilst his father frequently utilized soaked collodian negatives, engineering experienced state-of-the-art to where by H. Marshall Gardiner was in a position to use gelatin dry plates in his earlier many years. And in the afterwards years he was in a position to benefit from the fewer highly-priced and a great deal far more easy roll movie.
One more extremely essential lesson Gardiner realized from his father was that 1 of the keys to working a successful photographic small business was to established up shop in a tourist vacation resort. Early in his career Gardiner traveled to Bermuda. There he shot a sequence of stunning Bermuda scenes that he hand-colored and offered to the Bermuda tourist trade. Offered there around a appreciable interval of time, these Bermuda scenes supplied a pleasant profits stream as the many years went on. They proved so common that we have even observed some with pre-printed (vs. hand-signed) signatures suggesting a major-enough gross sales quantity to justify the appreciable price of pre-printing mats.
About 1910 he initial traveled to the island of Nantucket, just off the shoreline of Massachusetts’s Cape Cod. He was all-around 26 at the time and the calendar year-spherical inhabitants of Nantucket was just about 2500, not virtually enough to maintain a photographic small business for the total 12 months. On Nantucket Gardiner opened a joint Pictures and Artwork Materials Shop. Doing the job as Nantucket’s distinctive agent for Eastman Kodak, his small business expanded to include things like the island’s only photo-ending support. Nonetheless, with these types of a tiny yr-spherical population, even the addition of a Present Store to compliment the hand-painted photos, normal portrait & photographic expert services, and art provides could not sustain him on Nantucket yr spherical.
So in the course of the winter months he assisted with the family’s photographic organizations in Daytona and Mackinac Island. And upon his father’s loss of life in 1935, Gardiner took over the family enterprise in Daytona on a complete-time basis.
H. Marshall Gardiner was married two times. His to start with marriage was to a Nantucket “Macy” who was a descendant of a person of the founding households of Nantucket. She died soon after 8 several years of relationship and he then married Bertha Coffin Chase, a descendant of a further Nantucket founding loved ones.
H. Marshall Gardiner’s hand-painted photographs are really equivalent to those people by Wallace Nutting and the other leading New England photographers. That is, most are matted, ordinarily on white mat board owning a platemark indentation all around the graphic, signed “H. Marshall Gardiner” decrease correct beneath the graphic, and titled lessen remaining beneath the graphic. And most are framed in thinner frames, also in the design of Wallace Nutting.
From the perspective of a hand-colored photography collector H. Marshall Gardiner made operates in 3 primary areas…Nantucket…Florida…and Bermuda. And the desirability of Gardiner’s perform with collectors normally ranks in that buy.
H. Marshall Gardiner’s Nantucket hand-painted photos are unquestionably his most desirable functions. Money generally life on Nantucket and each entire-time and component-time citizens, as effectively as visitors and travelers, appreciate to accumulate Gardiner’s hand-painted Nantucket images. Scenes with properties and individuals are usually the most desirable. Seascapes and locale-unique Exterior scenes are also remarkably collectible. His additional generic Exterior scenes are almost certainly the the very least collectible of his different Nantucket views. Though for a shorter period of time of time close to 2000-2002 costs were topping $1,000 for the rarest Nantucket scenes in the greatest situation, the significant-close sector has softened rather and now the much better Gardiner Nantucket scenes will more usually convey in the $250-$500 vary. Evidently the Gardiner Nantucket marketplace on eBay was pushed by only a modest handful of collectors and, once they both acquired a wished-for title or dropped out of the sector, top rated costs begun to tumble again into line. A lot more prevalent Nantucket titles and those in damaged affliction can bring significantly less.
Gardiner’s Florida hand-painted photographs are starting to be expanding collectible to both hand-painted images collectors as properly as normal-line Florida collectors. Most of Gardiner’s Florida scenes are extra generic (palms, coastlines, hanging moss, streams, sand, etcetera.). Location-specific images will commonly convey much better costs than will the much more generic Florida scenes and you can commonly expect Gardiner’s Florida hand-coloured pictures to bring in the $100-$250 selection.
And his Bermuda scenes, while the minimum collectible of the three primary Gardiner groups, are still very prized by collectors. Even so, since we have found much less “Bermuda” collectors than “Florida” or “Nantucket” collectors, selling prices for Bermuda scenes will typically operate $75-$150 at our Auctions.
Gardiner’s postcards are also extensively collected. Unlike his hand-painted photographs which can command a high quality price nowadays, his Nantucket postcards are significantly less difficult to find and are a great deal much more cost-effective. And if you like the images of H. Marshall Gardiner, you will be in a position to obtain noticeably much more sights in postcards than in hand-coloured pictures. Most of Gardiner’s postcards were being produced by the Detroit Publishing Firm employing their “Phostint” patented printing method. Though some B&W postcards might be located, his most popular and several postcards are shade. Normally H. Marshall Gardiner postcards will deliver $2.50-$10.00 every single despite the fact that certain types may well convey relatively larger price ranges.
H. Marshall Gardiner died on December 4, 1942 and is buried on his beloved Nantucket
Recommended Reading through: For further more info on H. Marshall Gardiner we would refer you to a book by his daughter, Geraldine Gardiner Salisbury titled H. Marshall Gardiner’s Nantucket Postcards: 1910-1940.
