This heartening scene of two penguins amidst an Antarctic landscape is made all the more desirable for being laid down onto the half-title of a copy of Antarctic Days (London, 1913) which George Marston (1882-1940) co-wrote with Ernest Shackleton and James Murray.
Marston studied art at the Regent Street Polytechnic which is now the University of Westminster. He was friends with Shackleton’s sisters, both of whom suggested he apply. He did and served on both the Nimrod (1907-09) and Endurance (1914-16) expeditions where, in addition to his work as artist, he was also in charge of clothing and general equipment.
Well aware of the need of distraction and entertainment in so hostile a climate, Shackleton was so determined to produce something of quality (upstaging Scott’s South Polar Times), that where another expedition leader might have had his men train in cross-country skiing or handling dog teams, he had several crew members complete a three-week course on operating a press at the London printer Sir Joseph Causton and Sons, Ltd. Marston was one of them - trained in etching and lithography - and was both contributor and assistant in the printing of Aurora Australis. Marston’s beautiful and dramatic images not only featured in the Antarctic printings, but illustrate The Heart of the Antarctic (1909), Antarctic Days (1913), and South (1919).
This image was completed shortly before Marston departed on Endurance on 8 August 1914 - the Antarctic evidently on his mind, his experience on Nimrod informing his preparation for Endurance. The subtitle of Marston and Murray’s Antarctic Days - Sketches of the Homely Side of Polar Life - couldn’t be more appropriate here.
C.f. Rosove 236.A1; Spence 830
