Customer Reviews

American Circus Posters (Dover Fine Art, History of Art)

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The poster examples span from the last decade of the 19th century to the 1930s and include different shows, not just Ringling & Barnum. There are wonderful images of polar bears, seals, oriental wrestlers, an assortment of Africa animals, goofy machines, and of course, your typical acrobats, trained horses, exotic costumes, and clowns. The art beautifully preserves the lithograph look. The pages are fine enough to frame if you choose. A brief paragraph is included with each poster for reference, date, history about the circus, etc.

Wow, this book of circus posters is amazing! I love the old circus and needed to find good illustrations for an elaborate tattoo. I can't stop flipping through the pages. Anyone will enjoy this book!

The years 1880-1930 were the great day of the travelling circus and its indispensable advertising adjunct, the oversize, full-color poster. Intended to catch the attention of the (often small-town or country) audience and lure it to the showgrounds, the posters here reproduced--sometimes rather overcrowded, sometimes elegantly simple--feature such classic circus elements as bareback riders, liberty horses, clowns (one poster consists of nothing but, over 20 of them in full makeup), acrobats, aerialists, daredevils (such as Mlle. Mauricia de Tires's "Auto Bolide Thrilling Dip of Death"), menageries, tableaux vivantes, street parades and Grand Marches, exotics such as presentations based on Bedouin tribal caravans or tales of the Arabian Nights, hippodrome races, and "wild" animals--elephants, lions (eight of them in one cage), tigers (eight of those, plus a black panther, under the eye of a female trainer), bears (10 brown ones or six polars, the latter appearing teamed with two great Danes and a pair of Shetland ponies), seals, the famous gorilla Gargantua the Great. There's even an act featuring no less than 16 performing housecats! Many of the posters feature the Ringling Bros., Barnum & Bailey show that most of us know, but there are also an assortment of others that were famous and successful in their day, such as Sells-Floto and Adam Forepaugh. Circus fans and lovers of colorful representational art will enjoy this oversize Dover volume.

was hoping for more of the sideshow/ circus freak posters. all poster were vibrant and great to look through, lots to see. enjoyable none the less!