Arty Farty Friday ~ Some Wild Exaggeration

The Sun has recently begun its journey, for this year, through zodiac sign Sagittarius, one of Sagittarius' keywords is exaggeration (courtesy of ruling planet Jupiter). My husband, coincidentally, brought my attention the other day to a photographer who made his name, and his fortune from exaggeration - one W.H. Martin. Husband had been researching for information to add to his list of 19th century and early 20th century photographers (See Lost Gallery HERE), whose names and occasionally addresses often appear at the foot of old cabinet cards. He had searched in connection with "Martin", one half of Gilkey and Martin.

As husband noted:

"It appears that the Martin of “Gilkey and Martin” was actually William H. “Dad” Martin who began the “Tall Tales” postcard business. These were cards depicting giant grasshoppers, rabbits, cabbages or onions, promoting some exaggerated comical tall tale.

Martin took over the photograph studio from Gilkey in 1894 and began making his photo-montage comic cards. He sold the photography studio the next year in 1895, to work full time on his post card business.

He became very wealthy and sold the postcard business in 1912. He then started the National Sign Company."

W.H.Martin was born in 1865 in Illinois. One census return accessible at ancestry.com gives his birth date as "Feb. 1865" - that's the only clue available. I'd hazard a guess that he was born in later February, with Sun in Pisces, ruled by Jupiter (exaggeration) and Neptune(fantasy). He'd likely have had some Sagittarius input too, inspiring him to portray these fantasies of exaggeration.

From Photography Museum website

Tall Tales have an honored place in American culture. From Paul Bunyan and King Kong to the legions of fishermen boasting about "the one that got away," there is something about exaggeration that appeals to our sense of national grandeur. Perhaps it's also our view that in the modern world, anything is possible. Giant hybrid crops? Sure. Rabbits the size of Buicks? Well--maybe.

Exactly this formula proved the key to oversize wealth and success for a photographer named William H. "Dad" Martin. In 1894, he took over a studio in Ottawa, Kansas. Martin began using trick photography in 1908, producing a series of wildly exaggerated post cards. These were so popular that he sold his studio the next year to concentrate on the post card business.

Within three years, Martin's trick photos earned him a fortune. Demand was so strong that his firm reportedly purchased photographic emulsion by the railroad tank car-full (or was that another tall tale?) Martin sold the business in 1912 and founded the National Sign Company. So far as we know, he never again ventured into the darkroom. But during his brief career as a post card photographer, "Dad" Martin tapped into the national psyche with his own imaginative brand of homespun surrealism.

From In the Inbetween

Martin’s technique was one which many photo-montage artists continue to use today: first, each element of the scene was photographed, then elements from multiple photographs were cut and pasted together, and finally the resulting montage was re-photographed, creating a seamless effect. This aesthetic of the “believably unbelievable” remains extremely popular even in modern photo-montage. Martin’s photographs were so well made and in such high demand that many of them were plagiarized and sold under other names.

EXAMPLES

Clicking on the images will bring up clearer pictures.

 Our Barn is Full

 Great Sport Fishing Here

 Harvesting a Profitable Crop of Onions

 A Pair of Hungry Pike

 Carving One of Our Watermelons

 Angling for Bull-Frogs