My six-volume series on early photographers in Malta should have been rounded off by one more book – about the life and works of another camera virtuoso: Edward Alfred Gouder.

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Although my collections had enough images signed by him to cram all the pages, biographical details about him proved impossible to garner. I interviewed every Gouder I knew in Malta, with meagre results.

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The other six volumes, about Georg Fürst, Salvatore Lorenzo Cassar, Horatio Agius, the Gozitan Mikiel Farrugia l-Badiku, Alfred Vella Gera and Gustavo Modiano/Richard Ellis proved difficult enough. But Gouder defeated me.

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This proved all the more aggravating because Gouder must have been my father’s photographer of trust. When Vincenzo Bonello served as Curator of Fine Arts, he instructed Gouder to professionally photograph innumerable works of art, paintings, sculptures, drawings, tapestries and architectural landmarks to establish a visual inventory of Malta’s cultural, artistic and historical heritage.

E.A. Gouder (1870-1942) had an equally good eye for the widest range of subjects – landscapes, events, nature, reportage

E.A. Gouder (1870-1942) had an equally good eye for the widest range of subjects – landscapes, events, nature, reportage.

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Personally, I consider his tour de force to be his series of Gozo boats, in which he weds his technical bravura to the eternal seduction of sails.

Many other camera artists fell for the lure of these vessels, but none captured their magic like Gouder did, in quality and in quantity. I managed to put together over 50 Gozo boat postcards by Gouder, but I guess there may be many more.

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He snapped them in the 1910s and later, usually with sails unfurled, before entering harbour.

This is my modest homage, and my apology for the book that I failed to deliver.

Of the impressive fleet of Gozo boats recorded by Gouder, only two seem to have survived.