Fall Magic Auction (Online-Only)

FU-MANCHU (David Bamberg). Fu-Manchu ‘Dragon’ Poster. [Argentina]: Fenix, ca. 1940. Full color lithograph bears a striking portrait of the magician in costume with his hands outstretched, his portrait encircled by a snarling dragon as a woman looks on. Handsomely framed with museum glass, sight 43 x 29\. Linen backed. Not examined out of frame. The last of the Bamberg dynasty of magicians, Fu Manchu was born into a career in front of the footlights. His father, Okito (Tobias Bamberg), trained him to think like a magician, but ultimately it was the tension in their relationship that inspired the younger Bamberg to become the most successful of all the magicians in his family. In addition to his father, David Bamberg, learned the business of magic from The Great Raymond, with whom he served as an assistant, and in the company of the magicians he grew up near: Kellar, Houdini, and Thurston. After years of struggling to develop his own show, he found fame and fortune with a full-evening program that played across Latin America with exceptional results, breaking box-office records at many of the finest theaters in the Spanish-speaking world. After the outbreak of World War II, his father, then retired in his native Holland, joined David and became a featured act in his show for a time. Okito would eventually retire to America, but Fu Manchu remained a star of the stage in South America for years to come. As Fu Manchu, he went on to appear in several Mexican films (which he later called "potboilers" in his candid autobiography, Illusion Show), and finally retired to Argentina where he owned and operated a magic shop and magic school.