In pictures: Gale and Polden Malta postcard artists

A robust name in Britain’s publishing and printing industry from 1868 to 1981, Gale and Polden took an active interest in the Maltese postcard market. 

Cover of Malta publication by Gale and Polden

They selected scenes of the island by several artists to reproduce on their cards. I will today feature two painters, one Maltese, familiar to art connoisseurs, the other a New Zealander better known in the international art market than in Malta.

'Gozo Boat in Rough Weather', by Luigi Maria Galea

'Gozo Boat in Fair Weather', by Luigi Maria Galea

Luigi Maria Galea (1847-1917) was a landscape painter in the Girolamo Gianni tradition – pleasant, charming, romantic, technically quite skilful but not outstandingly creative.

Previously popular as a humble supplier of tourist art mementos, today he commands staggering prices in the domestic art market. Gale and Polden chose many of his paintings for its Malta postcards, from the early 1900s to the interwar years. I am reproducing six.

'View of Valletta from High Sea', by Luigi Maria Galea

General View of Quarantine Harbour, by Luigi Maria Galea

The professionally trained New Zealand artist Kathleen Airini Vane (1891-1965) volunteered to work as a nurse in Malta in World War I and visited the island again more than once, both before and after World War II. She suffered grievous head injuries in 1957 and never painted again.

According to one source, she exhibited her Malta works after the war and before 1924 but I found no confirmation of this. Gale and Polden chose six of her Maltese watercolours, all dated 1930s, for a set of postcards, repeatedly reprinted.

'Valletta and Isola Watch Tower', by Kathleen Airini Vane

'Washing Day at the Pink House', St Paul's Bay, by Kathleen Airini Vane

Though a prolific painter, she remains virtually unknown in Malta and I have never come across her works in public or private collections. She must have felt uneasy at figure painting, as people rarely appear in her compositions and, when they do, they are diminutive shadows. 

Calcara Creek, by Kathleen Airini Vane

'The Grand Harbour', by Kathleen Airini Vane

Strange, as her mother had been a leading portrait painter in New Zealand.

'Wine Boats at the Marsa', by Kathleen Airini Vane

'Città Vecchia and Old Maltese Well', by Kathleen Airini Vane

All postcards from the author’s collection