Vintage sideshow banners, the massive hand-painted canvases that once lined carnival midways — are one of the most exciting corners of American folk art collecting. They’re bold, oversized, one-of-a-kind, and increasingly hard to find. They’re also commonly misidentified. Fakes exist but are not extremely common. Buyers and sellers make assumptions based on a quick glance….
The June 2021 Circus, Sideshow and Oddities auction at Potter & Potter displayed quite a few fantastic pieces, and some of the best examples of sideshow banner art still around today. The crown jewel of the banner lots was the Rosshill “Circus Carnival Show Banners” which was clearly used as the main sign for the…
As a young boy, Eisman immigrated with his family from Europe. His father, who was a sign painter, started Nieman off with painting, which lead him, in 1910, to work for one of the first banner painters to set up a shop in Chicago: Sigmund Bock. After Bock passed away, Eisman worked for United States…