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Big Game Fish Map Complete Illustrated Fresh and Salt Water Fishing.
Chicago, 1936. Western Litho. and Printing. Co. Racine, Wis. Chromolithograph, 36” x 33” plus margins, recently reinforced on verso with Japanese tissue. CONDITION: Very good, some marginal dampstaining, mainly in lower margin, one .5” tear at right margin near “Snook,” one 2” tear near “Amber Jack” at center right, one 3” tear near “Crappie” and “Yellow Perch” at center left, 1” tear in top margin near title, all neatly repaired with Japanese tissue. A marvelous pictorial map of the fresh and saltwater fish found in North and Central America and the surrounding seas, with illustrations of a multitude of species, vignettes of anglers, text regarding numerous records, and four additional inset maps showing Panama, New Zealand, Tahiti, the Hawaiian Islands, and the fish to be found in each place. Extending from Canada to Central America, the map is surrounded by a border picturing fifty-six different game fish. Appearing in the ocean waters are numerous saltwater fish accompanied by records of notable catches, such as “Bimini Island…Marlin (Blue) 706lbs,” “Banks off NY…Codfish 52lbs,” “Banks off NJ Coast…Shark 998lbs,” “Santa Catalina Tuna Club…Tuna 251lbs,” and many more. Also included is a table of the “World’s Record Salt Water Game Fish,” listing forty record fish. Within the lands represented, fish native to various states and regions are pictured, with occasional reference to records, including a “Rainbow Trout 16lb” caught in Fish Lake, Utah, a “Sturgeon 1000lbs” caught near Columbia, Oregon, a “Record Muskelunge 58 1/4lbs” caught in Ontario, and many others from Canada to Mexico. A table of the “World’s Record Fresh Water Game Fish” appears in the Pacific Ocean, off California. A third list of “Twenty-two World famous Places to Go Fishing” appears in the waters to the east of Central America. Map designer and author Joe Godfrey (1900–?) was a sportsman known “far and wide for his ability to tell of fishing expeditions and excursions into the quiet streams of Canada” (“Noted Angler”). He delivered numerous talks at sporting societies throughout the United States during the 1930s and wrote over ten books, including The Green Book of Salt Water Fish (1937), Salt Water Fish (1939), Fresh Water Fish (1939), and The Great Outdoors: The Where, When, and How of Hunting and Fishing (1947). He designed several other large-format maps including the Hyde Park Bird Map: Game Birds of North America (1941) and an Illustrated Map of Dogs (1936). In addition, he also founded “the Sportsmen’s club, a national organization of 500 big game hunters and fishermen [in 1933]. He…had wide journalistic experience…edited a column entitled ‘The Fishing Line,’” and was an enthusiastic fisherman (“Noted Angler”). Illustrator Gordon Ertz (1892–1980) was the child of German immigrants who became notable Illinois art dealers. Ertz spent most of his working life in the Chicago area, producing drawings and watercolors that were typically of “slim dancing figures…in graceful lines and delicate poses. It is almost, with some of his sketches, as though a butterfly had passed over his paper and left the shadow of its beauty on the page,” (“Modernists Give us Pause”). His art nouveau designs often adorned the covers of magazines like The Inland Printer and sometimes appeared in books. The present map is the only large-format printed work by Ertz that we have been able to identify. He did, however, illustrate a series of aquatic-themed postcards, and in 1935 painted a twelve-foot tall and fourteen-foot wide “Large Elephant Painting” at the North Michigan Sportsmen’s Club, which was designed by Godfrey and “equipped with real elephant ears…taken from the tenth largest elephant ever killed” as of 1935 (“Large Elephant Painting”). Western Litho. and Printing Co. was founded in 1906 and quickly became one of the foremost business enterprises in Racine, Wisconsin. Established by John Geller, it was originally called the Westside Printing Company, and business “was conducted under the original name until 1910, when it was incorporated under the laws of Wisconsin as the Western Printing & Lithographing Company…In 1908 the plant was located in the cellar of Dr. Fazen’s building on State Street, but was removed to Joseph Leichtweih’s building at 550 State Street, occupying half of that building in 1909. The following year a removal was made to the Dr. Shoop building at 213-227 State Street, where they occupied the basement and a part of the first floor” (“The Western”). OCLC locates a single example, at Western Illinois University. REFERENCES: “Noted Angler to Address Waltons Wednesday Night,” The Oshkosh Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin), February 6, 1932; “Modernists Give us Pause at the Art Institute,” The Chicago Tribune, November 9, 1924; “Large Elephant Painting Adorns New Clubrooms,” The Chicago Tribune, April 5, 1935; “The Art of Gordon Ertz” at feuilleton online; “The Western Printing and Lithographing Company” at Wisconsin Genealogy online.
Item #9171
On Hold
Price: $950.00
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