Wood Carved Circus Poster Letterpress
Dublin Core
Title
Wood Carved Circus Poster Letterpress
Description
The actual wood blocks are the ones that are reversed. The others are edited for closer inspection and readability.
Large hand carved circus menagerie scene letterpress wood block. Made by the Neal Walters poster company in Arkansas c. 1930's-1940. "From All Parts Of The World 150 Circus Artists and Performers. Double Giant Menagerie From Five Continents. 5,000 seats 500,000 invested" . These are the primary and secondary plates for a two color poster. You can see the overlay from the other ink color on each board. The wood blocks combine to depict ariel acts, animals and circus clowns. The red letterpress has carving from another poster on the reverse. The color of each board is from the original ink surface.
The creation of these blocks were not in the beging of the circus rise in popularity which can be deduced by its given date, but also by the use of clowns which were not popular until the 1920s.
~Madeleine Hodges~
Large hand carved circus menagerie scene letterpress wood block. Made by the Neal Walters poster company in Arkansas c. 1930's-1940. "From All Parts Of The World 150 Circus Artists and Performers. Double Giant Menagerie From Five Continents. 5,000 seats 500,000 invested" . These are the primary and secondary plates for a two color poster. You can see the overlay from the other ink color on each board. The wood blocks combine to depict ariel acts, animals and circus clowns. The red letterpress has carving from another poster on the reverse. The color of each board is from the original ink surface.
The creation of these blocks were not in the beging of the circus rise in popularity which can be deduced by its given date, but also by the use of clowns which were not popular until the 1920s.
~Madeleine Hodges~
Creator
Neal Walters poster company
Source
https://www.1stdibs.com/furniture/folk-art/carnival-art/large-original-wood-carved-circus-poster-letterpress/id-f_639539/
Date
1930s-1940s
Files
Citation
Neal Walters poster company, “ Wood Carved Circus Poster Letterpress,” Materiality and Spectacle 2015, accessed November 27, 2025, https://ds-omeka.haverford.edu/materiality-and-spectacle-2015/items/show/75.