This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/30/2022
[CIRCUS]. A scrapbook of circus dancers and “side show girls” snapshots and photographs. Circa 1930s/40s. Over 80 photographs, mounted on oblong 4to album pages. Wonderful collection featuring images of scantily-clad and theatrically dressed women of American sideshows and circuses, including Cole Bros. and Sells-Floto. Includes images from Chicago’s Century of Progress (1933-34) and across the country, including San Francisco’s Chinatown, a view of Hollywood’s Egyptian Theatre façade; and other circus imagery including parades, elephants, wagons, ticket stands, trains, tent interiors and exteriors, performers, a snake charmer, and others. Silver prints, sizes generally 3 ½ x 3 ½ to 9 ½ x 7 ½”. (Album disbound, the pages individually inserted in plastic album sleeves). An outstanding vernacular photographic record including a number of scarce images of risqué circus “bump and grind” dance shows. Several photos in this scrapbook were published in The Circus: 1870-1950 (Taschen, 2008), pp. 402-403.