THE BALLOON MAN

Star Magazine High-wire hyperbole colors circus exhibit

The 1904 circus poster of "The Six Flying Jordans in their Wondrous Flights," from the Forepaugh and Sells Bros.
from: kansascity.com
Fri, Jul. 29, 2011
Without the mighty adjective, it would seem not a soul would step right up.

The circus, after all, is not simply a show on this place we call Earth. It’s the greatest show on Earth. And through the decades, in its hallowed ring we mere mortals have witnessed magnificent trapeze artists, triumphal equestrians, fearsome wild animals and, of course, magical clowns.
Ask anyone born more than 40 years ago and they’ll tell you it must all be true.
A detail seen from the 1941 circus poster of the Hamid-Morton Circus featuring Clyde Beatty fending off a group of lions, as part of the Tegge Circus Archives collection on display at the Kansas City Public Library Central branch downtown through Aug. 28th. DAVID EULITT/The Kansas City Star
“What you see on these old posters, pure and simple, is salesmanship — advertising at its finest,” says Tim Tegge, who grew up performing in his family’s circus. “In the late ’40s and ’50s, the heyday of the circus, there was tough competition. You had to be more spectacular, bigger, more magnificent than the next show or the one before it.”

You’ll see a sample of Tegge’s collection of around 2,000 posters, along with circus memorabilia and a one-third scale replica of a calliope wagon, at the Central Library downtown through Aug. 28.

Visit the exhibit, and you’ll witness a colorful slice of American history. That these posters survived the years is miraculous, says Tegge, who still works as a clown, circus illusionist, ringmaster and performance director at small theaters around the country.

“They were stuck to latrine doors and plastered on walls throughout towns before the circus came,” he says. “Circus performers sure didn’t save them. They lived out of small trunks as they traveled around the country. They had no room to collect anything.”
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/07/29/3041123/star-magazine-high-wire-hyperbole.html#ixzz1TaNOg6lR