Circus Posters
Historic Posters Come to Light
There was a barn wall in an upstate NY hamlet where advertisement posters once hung. Dating to around 1900, advertisements included everything from cut tobacco to horse medicine, but most elaborately presented were circus posters.
The coming of the circus was announced by posters, hung by an advance team a week or two before the arrival of the circus. These could be displayed on any good-sized surface with public exposure. Barn and shed walls were typically pressed into service. But these walls were not smooth and were exposed to the elements. The lithographed paper posters deteriorated quickly. Once pasted to an irregular clapboard wall, there was no salvation.
Circus posters were plentiful but ephemeral. These examples are special. They were hung in a mostly protected space. Then fortuitously, even though roughly removed, they were put aside.
These fragments are sections cut from a billboard-sized wall onto which they were pasted, one atop the other. The number of layers varies from 12-20. The top dozen or so layers are the largest. (That is, a fragment torn and/or cut from a complete larger whole.) The size of the overall original from which sections were removed is unknown. Posters were printed in pieces and hung like wallpaper. In some instances, the registration is off, illustrating the slapdash attitude of the paperhangers. Paste was brushed on liberally and unevenly. As the layers’ accumulated wrinkles were papered over and became amplified, they added topography to what was intended to be a flat surface.
As more and more posters were added to the wall, the layers became unstable. Tacks and nails were driven through the pile to hold them to the wall. Unstable sections were torn off and discarded to strengthen the base for the next layer. This explains the variability in the number of layers.
My relationship with the posters goes back to June of 1972. A closed general store, richly adorned with vintage advertising stood at the intersection of Routes 346 and 22 in North Petersburg, NY. Next to the store was a barn with a shallow open bay facing the road. As one slowed to stop at the intersection, you could glimpse some captivating graphics. Investigation revealed a floor to ceiling wall of 3” flat boards that had served as the base for displaying circus posters. The crumbling remains of a Lion Poster was most dramatic. In the corners, posters were pasted one atop the other. I photographed this in black and white. Over the years, as my technique improved, I would make a print. And I wondered just what had gone on at this spot, and how much had I missed?
At some point the store was stripped of its advertising art and painted. Around 2000, the open bay of the barn was enclosed and converted to an antique shop. I stopped in and saw a few scraps of the old posters still clinging to the wall.
The store’s proprietor told me that; “yes, posters had been on that wall”. Circus posters that advertised shows in Bennington, VT and North Adams, MA had been pasted one atop the other in this protected spot for years. A couple of pieces had been removed and were in the loft. I wondered if I might have a look? Up the stairs to the empty hay loft we went. Illuminated by small windows, high in each peak, the light was low and monochromatic. Nailed to a sidewall were two sections of posters. They were an armful measuring 3’x5’. A deal was struck and I flopped them into the back of my Volvo wagon. I was euphoric. An inquiry over some obscure history had unearthed a treasure.
Once home, as I examined the find, my excitement was tempered with the reality that I had taken ownership of a conservation nightmare. These were two adjacent pieces, each approximately 3x5 feet, cut from still larger posters. Each group was up to about 30 layers thick in spots.
Since that time, I have grappled with what ought to be done. As objects they were compelling. The front posters of both bundles were of circuses replete with tents, elephants, acrobats and aerialists. The backs were a jumble of torn paper. The edges, badly frayed and flaking away, offered tantalizing clues as to what lay just out of sight.
The challenge was how to separate the layers to see what was there. The first consideration was, should they be disassembled at all? As they stood, as a singular object, there was much food for the imagination (and for the bugs). Doing nothing was a sensible option.
The layers of posters and broadsides had been firmly pasted together. By experimenting with small break-away fragments, it was proven that by soaking in water, it was possible to coax the layers apart. It was also proven that too much time in a wetted state resulted in compromised structural integrity of the paper stock. Not all papers were the same. Some were thin and very fragile when wet. Simply soaking and having the layers float apart wasn’t going to happen. I was out of my league and stumped. The project languished.
None of the conservators and museum professionals I had spoken to over the years had actionable suggestions. When I showed the project to the Williamstown Art Conservation Center, I was politely told by paper conservator Leslie Paisley, that the treatment carried great risk, would likely be very expensive and time consuming, and that the cost might not justify the outcome. Fair enough. Time passed. Leslie retired.
Again, I consulted Leslie: could the bundle be unstuck? Possibly, but would the risk of total destruction justify the effort? The consideration was: what would be lost versus what was to be gained. I had always hoped for disassembly but only with a reasonable chance of success. In its current form, the bundle had a wonderful section of circus poster on the front and a hash of paper on the back. As an object, it was an inch thick mound of mystery compelling enough to be featured in a show of historic circus art at the Shelburne Museum.
Only one poster was visible while up to thirty others lay buried below. I was advocating for separation and argued that the encapsulated layers within were as good as non-existent if they could not be seen. Why not give it a shot?
Because of the size of the posters, (about 3’x5’) a shallow sink was built on a sheet of plywood. An additional sheet of plywood was added for a workspace.
With the garage cleaned and reconfigured as a conservation space, the stack of posters was humidified overnight. In the morning, the sink was filled and the stack was immersed. After a day, the edges showed signs of releasing. Gallons of dirty orange water was flushed from the sink and replaced with fresh. We waited another day. The edges were becoming fragile. The core was yielding, but very slowly. Would the edges disintegrate before the core would release?
Once the water ran clear, the sodden pile was carefully removed from the sink between sheets of thick Mylar film for support and placed face down. The smaller fragments that comprised the bottom of the pile were sufficiently saturated to release using spatulas. They were rinsed and numbered. Full sheets of Mylar were placed over each layer to aid in support and to keep the registration of the thin, damaged paper. The damp poster paper clung to the Mylar. With careful manipulation from both ends of the poster the Mylar was rolled back after a very thin spatula was inserted between the layer of paste and the poster. A tube inserted under the Mylar prevented kinks in the Mylar during rolling.
Once the poster was face up and fully separated, it was sprayed with water and wiped of its excess paste. A layer of spun bonded polyester was laid on the face of the poster and it was placed between wool blankets under weight to flatten and slowly dry.
This was very exciting as the excavation revealed the contents of the pile for the very first time.
The poster bundle had come from a wall where layer after layer had been hung one atop the other for years. But as the poster hangers had come to do their job, they had peeled away loose layers that would impede the hanging of the poster in hand. The result was that the bottom layers, the oldest, were mostly scalloped away. As one progressed toward the top of the pile, the posters became more and more complete.
The paste layers appear to have been colored with a red pigment. Leslie surmised that it was so that the person pasting the wall could determine where he had applied the paste (to ensure that the whole surface was covered). This also helped us to see what was paste and what was poster when separating the layers. Some toned paste remains on the surfaces of the posters.
As we were seeing the bottom before the top, it wasn’t until the poster turned on the roller that we could see the image. As the paper was wet and thus translucent, it was possible to see through the working layer and often a layer or two below that. Through and on the wetted paper, paste and ink images appeared in serendipitous combinations revealing the mystery that had infused the bundle as a three-dimensional entity. Powerful graphics had come unmoored from their intended function and were now reconfiguring themselves, freeform.
These combinations were to appear and disappear, morphing into new ones as work progressed.
Accordingly, I would put down my spatula and pick up my camera to record these ephemeral moments. The resultant images are among the most interesting outcomes of the project.
This process would continue for almost a week with each of the two bundles. We labored feverishly until our eyes or backs or feet gave out. Time was working against us. The paper’s structure was getting progressively weaker. Some layers were not of circus posters but of broadsides and advertisements. These were on less sturdy paper stock and proved delicate. Some layers had been torn or physically damaged and when their time came for separation they disintegrated. In the final count there were over twenty distinctive layers, some with multiple pieces.
The significant posters came through largely intact. In some cases, small fragments of the fragile edges broke away. On balance the surviving pieces are in a much-improved condition. They are flushed of the thick paste that coated them front and back, though some ink was transferred to the paste and lost. Foreign objects encapsulated within such as bugs and hay were removed. With soil washed away they are brighter. In fact, having been covered over and protected from light the colors are mostly intact. As a single layer they were amenable to flattening areas where some serious wrinkles had been locked into place by the paste.
The next step in the poster’s conservation would be to rewet, clean, and adhered to a sturdy paper lining. A costly proposition.
For now, the poster remnants are stable and safe.
The Circus Comes to Bennington will be a show at the Bennington Museum in the fall of 2024. Several large fragments will be exhibited for the first time in 125 years.
This book describes our remarkable findings. CIRCUS POSTERS: Historic Posters Come to Light
See the full series at Whitman Photo Archive - Circus Posters
The Shelburne Museum has acknowledged these unusual objects. The Sautelle Acrobat Poster and some of these photographs were exhibited in Papering the Town: Circus Posters in America .
