A selection of postcards with designs, including comic and satirical cartoons as well as landscapes, produced and published by Cynicus.
Martin Anderson (1854 – 1932), better known by his pseudonym Cynicus, was a Scottish artist, political cartoonist, postcard illustrator, and publisher. He was born in Leuchars, Fife, in 1854.
In 1898 Anderson began working for Blum & Degen in Edinburgh where he designed court-sized postcards. In 1902, after the Post Office allowed divided back postcards, picture postcards became very popular and also began to be widely collected.
In 1902 Anderson decided to form his own company. The "Cynicus Publishing Company" was incorporated as a limited company and began publishing colour postcards by the second half of 1902. Initially, the company did exceedingly well. However, by 1908 the mass-market popularity of postcards began to decline and the company suffered from dwindling profitability.
In 1912, after the collapse of the Cynicus Publishing Company, Anderson set up the "Cynicus Art Publishing Company" based in Leeds (the home of several postcard publishers) and began reissuing his old postcards and designing new ones. About 100 different postcards are known to have been printed by the Leeds company until 1914.
In 1915 Anderson moved to Edinburgh, leasing a
basement shop in York Place. In 1924 his Edinburgh shop was destroyed by
fire, everything inside it was lost, and he did not have the funds to repair
and restock it. He retired to his castle-like mansion in Balmullo to live in
increasing poverty.
He died suddenly on 14 April 1932 and was buried in Tayport Old Churchyard, Fife.
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