Below are photographs of circus poster advertisements taken in 1936 by American photographer Walker Evans who is best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression. Much of Evans’ work from the FSA period uses the large-format 8×10-inch camera.
The Silas Green Show Poster
“Silas Green From New Orleans” was America’s longest running tent show, running from 1905 to 1957.
Buck Jones Roaring West + Downie Bros. Wild Animal Circus
(All images via the Library of Congress)
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“Walker Evans was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1903 and after his education, spent time in Paris living the bohemian life before returning to America in the late 1920s. Intending on becoming a writer, he became a photographer instead. Evans had taken up photography in 1928, at the age of twenty-five. It afforded him the opportunity to live, as he said, “very shabbily” in New York City. He experimented with photography by taking pictures of the city street life and vernacular architecture and by making portraits of his artist and intellectual friends… His stated goal for his work was to be “literate, authoritative, transcendent.” The resulting work offers an important study of American culture in the early and middle decades of the 20th century.“
For more information visit the Library of Congress.
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In parts of rural Louisiana there were a number of buildings that were hosts to circus ads. My dad had a small warehouse. At the age of about 3 or 4 years old I couldn’t imagine anything more cool than finding a big poster of tigers and trapeze artists plastered from top to bottom on his building. Ratz! Didn’t get a pony either…
Nice vignette on Walker Evans’ photography and connections to the history of places and their culture.