One of our favorite holiday traditions on Nantucket is to get up early on New Year’s Day, drive out to the beach and watch the sun rise over the new year.
But we understand that might be a little too early for those who like to count down to midnight on December 31 and toast the new year with a glass or two of champagne. If you’re still planning your holiday activities on-island, check out the slate of events hosted by The Nantucket Hotel. In addition to their 3-course feasts for dinner on Christmas Eve & Christmas Day (make reservations now!), they also hold a festive New Year’s Eve celebration. You can stop by for a 3-course dinner thoughtfully curated by Executive Chef Michael Hervieux, paired with hand-selected wines; join them for a mind-reading performance by the extraordinary Jon Stetson; and then stay for a countdown & after-party with dancing till midnight.
This is the start of the quiet season on Nantucket, but through the end of December, you can enjoy the island’s Christmas spirit by strolling through the gorgeous Festival of Trees display in the Nantucket Historical Association’s Whaling Museum. Community members, local merchants, nonprofit organizations, artists, artisans, and schoolchildren design the magnificent trees: traditional and non-traditional. The Whaling Museum is open Monday through Saturday from 10 am to 4 pm — from 10 am to 3 pm on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve — and closed on Christmas Day.
While you are strolling through the Festival of Trees, stop in to see the Tony Sarg exhibit, also on display in the museum until December 31. Tony Sarg: Genius at Play explores this artist & summer resident’s adventures in illustration, puppetry, and popular culture.
Until this exhibit, on today’s Nantucket, Sarg was best known for his sea monster hoax. Now we know this artist offered so much more. “Tony Sarg was such an important figure in American culture, and his work, unbeknownst to many, still impacts our arts and entertainment today. He was an especially popular character here on Nantucket, and the NHA is proud to be the home for much of his collection. The idea for such a project began decades ago, and we are grateful to the Norman Rockwell Museum and glad to be working with them, to bring this exciting exhibition to the island,” says Niles Parker, Gosnell Executive Director.
In August of 1937, Nantucket Island was abuzz: a sea monster was swimming in our waters and walking along our shores, leaving huge three-toed prints in the sand. News wires went out, and articles were published across the country speculating about the strange beast. Island fisherman Bill Manville claimed to have seen what he described as a monster more than 100 feet long that the Nantucket Inquirer & Mirror reported “reared its head several times off his starboard bow before turning seaward.”
More sightings followed, then word went out that the massive sea monster with huge teeth had washed up on South Beach (Francis Street Beach). Dozens turned out to see this wonderous creature—a sea monster that, like the stories, was full of hot air.
The Nantucket sea monster was the newest of artist and summer resident Tony Sarg’s huge balloons that he created for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. And the sightings, footprints, local news articles were part of an intricately planned and well-executed hoax and publicity stunt.
Sarg was a well-known and accomplished illustrator, puppeteer, designer, animator, cartoonist, and entrepreneur who delighted in sharing wonder, joy, and magic. And he delighted in pranks. Remembered as the “father of modern puppetry in North America,” he considered his Macy’s parade balloons to be “upside-down marionettes.” Sarg summered on and took inspiration from Nantucket Island for nearly twenty years.
The Genius at Play exhibit features Sarg’s original artwork, illustrations, marionettes, animations, books, commercial products, archival photographs, and ephemera from his dynamic life and career, including nearly two hundred objects and images from the NHA’s extensive Tony Sarg Collection. Highlighting Sarg’s tremendous talent and legacy within the fields of puppetry and illustration, the exhibition also reveals how Nantucket’s historic sites and colorful characters came to inspire his work and the many ways that this influential artist gave back to the island he loved.
Exhibition themes explore Sarg’s professional as well as his personal life, from his upbringing in Guatemala and military career in Germany, to his involvement in the artistic circles of London, New York, and Nantucket. These personal vignettes are joined by sections devoted to Sarg’s diverse professional pursuits, from illustration, puppetry, and animation to Macy’s parade balloons, commercial products, children’s books, and architectural projects.
