Damn Everything But The Circus!
So wrote ee cummings, a poet who sprang to mind as I read this story: ‘Creepy clowns, flying acrobats, performing cats: circuses were big business at the turn of the 20th century. Dutch circus lover Jaap Best devoted his life to collecting vintage posters from across Europe. After he died in 2002, the Jaap Best Circus Archive Foundation bequeathed his 8,000 posters to the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, which put them on an online database (www.circusmuseum.nl/eng/). Foundation board member Herman Voogd says: “These are historic documents. You can think what you like about it, but the old style of circus is disappearing: in many places they don’t allow live animal shows any more. But these lithographs are so beautifully designed – they were all originally hand-painted – and now everyone can enjoy them.‒
