Vintage Circus Posters and Ephemera
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Amazing! Spectacular! Step Right Up and Get a Piece of the Greatest Shows on Earth
By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — For millions of American kids, Ringling Brothers’ shows were a highlight of childhood—a magical experience of heart-stopping acrobatic feats, majestic trained animals, and silly bumbling clowns. Yet those shows came to a stop in 2017, when the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus held its last show after operating continuously for 147 years. Though circuses will live on, adapting to current audiences and culture, it is clear that the classic era of animal menageries and sideshow...
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The Last Laugh: Why Clowns Will Never Die
By Lisa Hix — It's no secret that clowns make people uncomfortable. Believe it or not, that’s the point: Clowns were created to test social conventions and speak truth to power, wagging their gloved fingers at institutional tomfoolery. When they’re right, we cheer them on—and when they’re wrong, usually in the most familiar, human way possible, they get their comeuppance in the form of painful or embarrassing pratfalls. To top it all it all off, clowns put many people on edge with their suspiciously...
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David Lance Goines Discusses Perfect Poster Design
By Maribeth Keane — I don’t collect posters. I don’t collect anything. I started making posters one at a time by hand in high school just for specific events, basically got going when I was a freshman. I still make them today, but they’re printed on a printing press now. I’ve made 221 posters, not including the ones I did in high school. Fundamentally, I believe that in order to be effective as opposed to artsy and not really effective at all, a poster has to be extremely simple. The Shepard Fairey posters...