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Freak Show

Sideshow Banner Art By Carl Hammer
and Gideon Bosker

9 x 7 in; 96 pp ; 90 Full-Color Photographs
Paperback
Published in June, 1996
ISBN 081180707X
ISBN13 9780811807074
Sorry, this book is out of print. Please contact alibris.com for limited availability.

$14.95  

Freak Show -- Step right up! The show's about to begin with this mesmerizing, full color collection of outrageous banners from the heyday of traveling circus sideshows. See the giant Alaskan king crab! Marvel at the Bearded Lady! Look, if you dare, at the Dog-Faced Boy! Watch the Woman Changing to Stone! Circus sideshows from the turn of the century through the 1950s boasted unbelievable "freaks of nature," incredible transformations, and death defying acts—and the brazen banners that drew in the crowds were as colorful and intriguing as the lurid attractions themselves. For collectors and nostalgia buffs, as well as the merely curious, Freak Show celebrates this unique American commercial folk art phenomenon with vivid photographs of authentic banners highlighting the genre's most memorable examples, the artists who created them, and the unusual people and bizarre creatures they immortalized.

Carl Hammer owns a gallery specializing in "outsider art" in Chicago. This is his first book.

Gideon Bosker is an Oregon based author, photographer, and connoisseur of popular culture whose many books include Freak Show, and Fabulous Fabrics of the 50s.