Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The Sawdust Ring 1936 #1


Scan11097, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Posted by Buckles at 3/11/2009 06:09:00 AM

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Sawdust Ring was published by the British CFA from 1934-1939 and was first class with its fine articles. The editor was Raymond Toole-Stott, erstwhile circus owner (Ray Stott's Circus), Bertram Mills publicist, and compiler of the great 5-volume circus bibliography "Circus and Allied Arts" which, someone once said, does everything for the researcher except actually write the book.
Dick Flint
Baltimore

11 March, 2009 07:51
Anonymous said...

A CD-ROM with the Sawdust Ring publications is available from the UK Circus Friends Association. Google Kingpole for info.
Erik Jaeger

11 March, 2009 18:48
Anonymous said...

The illustrations by Dame Laura Knight should be noted. The world of the circus caught her fascination in the late 1920s when she was introduced to Bertram Mills and so she was one of the early founders of the British CFA, hence these illustrations in the CFA publication. While her reputation has much faded, she was quite famous in the 1920s and also the first woman ever elected to the British Royal Academy of Arts. Her great fame resulted in her appointment as the official artist of the Nuremberg war trials in 1946 and the creation of a large painting, “The Dock, Nuremberg” now in London’s Imperial War Museum. The painting shows the Nazi leadership in the courtroom against a backdrop depicting the apocalyptic devastation of the war on Germany cities. I just looked at my copy of her 1936 autobiography titled “Oil Paint and Grease Paint” because of her two passions and it begins, because she was so associated with the circus that was frequently the subject of her paintings, “I was not, as most people assume, born in a circus, suckled by an elephant.”

At one point, she and her husband came to Johns Hopkins Hospital here in Baltimore and established some friendships that lasted until her death in 1970 at age 93. I knew one of these friends who kindly gave me one of the colorful circus drawings Knight had done for her friend as a Christmas gift.

Dick Flint
Baltimore

11 March, 2009 22:23
jerry digney said...

Laura Knight cover is interesting--she was an outstanding highly collectible British artist who also loved the circus and did some amazing drawings and paintings, even a book of drawings on the circus-- i think we have one of her circus drawings;

12 March, 2009 00:05
Anonymous said...

To save you the trouble of googling

www.circusfriends.co.uk

12 March, 2009 07:47

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