Charles Philip Fox - American Circus Posters

The numbers are those of the pages on which the posters are illustrated.

Front cover: May Wirth, superstar of the 1910s and 1920s, captured the hearts of all who witnessed her act. This attractive girl from Australia, who always wore a large bow in her hair, performed incredible bareback-riding feats.

Inside front cover: In the winter of 1918/1919 the Ringling Bros., who since 1907 had owned the Barnum & Bailey circus as well as their own, decided to combine the two shows into one gigantic aggregation. Always frugal, they did not scrap their inventory of posters advertising Barnum & Bailey alone, but instructed their printers, the celebrated Strobridge Lithographing Company of Cincinnati, to devise ways of using this obsolete stock. Under the Barnum & Bailey banner, the present poster had advertised the menagerie (note the copyright date of 1916). Strobridge printed and hand-pasted a sticker that referred to Ringling Bros., covering over the reference to the menagerie. Thus we have what is probably the only circus poster on which the famous title of the combined shows is reversed.

Inside back cover: In this 1912 poster, the Strobridge artists cleverly separated the six scenes by means of outlines and balanced color areas, creating a fascinating composite of the various routines one would expect to see at the circus performance.

Back cover: The Sparks Circus, which moved on 20 railroad cars, was always well received. The show was large enough to order special paper depicting certain acts. Mixed animal presentations were always popular. This poster, by the Erie Lithograph Co. of Erie, Pa., dates from the 1920s.

1: All big circuses in the first half of the twentieth century carried a large menagerie of wild animals. This was a popular and highly educational feature. The attractive montage on this Erie Lithograph poster of the 1920s indicates the vast and varied collection of animals that would be on display.

2: In the days of the big tented circuses, the hippodrome races, usually reserved for the finale, were especially exciting. The furiously thundering hooves of the galloping horses would bring the entire audience to their feet. This is a Strobridge poster of the 1890s.

3: No doubt at least three artists worked on a poster like this 1906 Strobridge example. One man might be adept at drawing horses, another very good with the human figure and a third clever with lettering or design. This combination of efforts was one of the reasons the artwork was rarely signed. 4: In 1904, as this Strobridge poster shows, the Clarkonians performed what is known as the double doubletwo somersaults and two pirouettes before being caught. The Flying Gaonas do this act today on the Greatest Show on Earth.

5: On this Strobridge poster, the press agents of 1905 called this thrill act a fearful frolic with fate. Indeed, all acts of this typewhether the performers operated somersaulting autos, rode hurtling bicycles over enormous gaps, or were catapulted from a huge crossbow or shot out of a cannonwere truly daring and dangerous.

6: This Strobridge poster of 1909 has an extremely graceful flow of line and unusually subtle color effects and relationships.

7: In 1909 Desperado made his terrific descent twice a day, and sometimes three times. The Strobridge artists captured all of the thrill of this unbelievable act.

8: In this poster of the 1920s the artist has made a clever composite of the routines performed by these male lions. In actuality, the trainer would put these big cats through their paces one trick at a time; this avoids confusion and keeps each animals attention riveted on the particular routine for which he is responsible.

9: Tiger acts have always been popular because of the enormous size of the animals and their startling beauty. The black leopard was added to the group for variety and perhaps for prestige. This poster dates back to the 1920s, when there were some 50 men and women trainers presenting big-cat acts on 14 circuses.

10: In 1903 Barnum & Bailey presented an unusually lavish Spectacle of Balkis (the Arabic name of the biblical Queen of Sheba). At this period all the big railroad circuses staged these pantomine productions involving hundreds of beautifully wardrobed people, scores of horses and dozens of elephants, camels, zebras and llamas. The subject might be Joan of Arc, Cinderella or Nero and the Burning of Rome. All these productions were part of the circus, presented in the big tent. Strobridge poster.

11: Both the artwork and the insistent text of this Strobridge poster of 1896 emphasize the bigness of the show. The thousands of circus-bound people pouring out of the excursion trains clinch the effect.

12: Although the daily street parade was in itself an advertisement that let the townspeople know for sure that it was circus day, the big shows used posters that advertised the advertisement! Strobridge poster, 1912.

13: Only a circus could promise, all on one poster, a Moorish Caravan, a Roman Hippodrome and an Imperial Japanese Troupe. All this conjured up the intrigue, pomp and astounding tricks that would be seen at the big show. Strobridge poster, 1893.

14: Seven scenes of beautiful horses and handsomely attired performers, neatly put together on one 1906 poster by the Strobridge artists, tell the whole story at a glance.

15: The wreath effectively sets off the formal group portrait of the equestrian family, and the shield below adds impact to their name. The scenes of the family in action are so vivid that only 12 words are needed to describe the act. Strobridge poster, 1909.

16: Barnum & Bailey played the entire season of 1902 in France. For this tour, posters like this Strobridgc one were printed in America and shipped to the circus advertising department in France. Translation of the text: For the children: all kinds of tricks by trained animals. The largest and most wonderful entertainment organization in the world.

17: To illustrate bears wire walking, stilt walking, riding bicycles, skating, dancing and playing instruments all on one poster is not an easy task. But the artists of this sheet from the 1920s accomplished the feat of an unconfused arrangement. The result makes you want to see the bears actually perform.

18: This poster, which embodies three main elements of the circusbeautiful girls, clowns and animalswas designed to announce the historic union of the Ringling Bros. circus with that of Barnum & Bailey in the winter of 1918/1919.

19: Designed by the Norman Bel Geddes Studio in the 1940s, this poster with the snarling leopard has set some kind of record for length of service, sincewith changes in lettering style over the yearsit was still in use in the 1970s.

20: The slogans 100 ClownsCount Em100 and An Army of Clowns, as on this poster of the 1920s, were commonly used to emphasize an important facet of any circus performance.

21: Five of the midget bareback riders tricks are shown on this one 1915 Strobridge poster, and only a few words of explanatory text are required.

22: When this Strobridge poster was designed in 1914, traffic and life in general moved at a slower pace than today. There was time to study the detail that the lithograph artists worked into their product. Twenty-two Chinese performers and three standard-bearers are woven into this composite drawing.

23: Pageantry, excitement and color are skillfully blended in this poster from the 1920s. If you went to this show you would see all these ingredients, but not simultaneously. While the parade on the hippodrome track was being presented, no acts would be taking place. If bareback acts were going on, there would be no aerial acts at the same time.