November 2, 2011
The Gantner & Mattern Company of San Francisco, located at 1453 Mission Street, was in the business of making swim wear, sweaters, and sport clothing. From 1936 through 1942, Ned Scott photographed their swim suit and sweater models to support their advertising campaigns which involved ad placement in major national magazine publications. The Gantner & Mattern Company no longer exists, but the building where it was housed still stands today on Mission Street. I was recently contacted by the current business which operates in the building, the California Institute of Integral Studies. Next year they are planning a 100th year anniversary to commemorate the 1453 Mission Street structure and its history. Since the Gantner & Mattern Company was a long time user of the building, they were interested in the many items from Ned Scott’s G & M collection, including photographs of swim suit models which he saved along with original correspondence between himself and the company. A sampling of these items will likely be represented in their display next year. While these years were filled with Hollywood film assignments for Ned Scott as as free lance still photographer, there were stretches during which he was idle. He picked up the slack with the G & M assignments and other commercial activities such as fashion photography and department store display photography. My father, who loved a good joke, was not amiss when creating his own humorous expressions with his cameras.
18 year old Ester Williams poses for test photo as swimsuit model for Gantner & Mattern, 1939, photo by Ned Scott