All the fun of the fairground has come to central London – to look at, as an exhibition of fairground memorabilia has filled the ground floor of the Bonhams auction house.
The exhibition is a snapshot of over 40 years of collecting fairground memorabilia by Ross Hutchinson, who says he was sparked to interest by an exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1977 about fairground decorations.
With fairgrounds in decline and much of the gaudy decorations destined for the bin, he started collecting.
While others focused on portable objects, signs, and the like, he went big—at times very big. He collected the fairground ride animals, the penny coin machines, so many wooden carvings, some of which are huge—and yes, vast quantities of painted signs.
To walk into Bonhams is to go through the circus tent entrance and into a room that could only come out of a child’s imagination.
You can stand back and gawp at the festival of fun, but soon, you’ll be wandering around looking at labels and seeing the prices. Some will be as expensive as you’d expect, while others are almost, hmmm, well, maybe?
I’d expect many of the signs to end up in achingly fashionable bars and pubs looking for a quirky decoration. Others were culturally “of their time” and likely to end up in private collections.
Some of the animals might adorn a nice living room or a plaything for a child at home. The really big pieces, goodness, well done to anyone with a house large enough for a start. I was particularly taken with the model of the steam carousel ride, with political figures familiar to those who watched Spitting Image as the gallopers for people to ride on.
The replica medieval carved heads would look marvellous as small display shelves in someone’s home. The German ones, well, as befits German folklore stories — are scary. The idea that there was once a penny toy that let children watch a man being executed in a jail reminds us that the past was a very strange place.
And achingly desirable — the very large working scale model of a coal-fired steam road locomotive. Anyone who had a Mamod steam engine as a child will sigh in envy.
It’s the sort of exhibition that’ll bring back smiles—not necessarily from memories of individual items but from the collective memory of evenings spent at a travelling funfair surrounded by flashing lights, bright colours, and lots of candyfloss.
The exhibition, The Greatest Show: The Fairground World of Ross Hutchinson is at Bonhams on New Bond Street until 9th September.
It’s open Monday to Friday from 9:30am to 4:30pm — and also on Sunday 8th Sept from 11am to 3pm.
It’s free to visit.
The auction will take place after the exhibition has closed – details here.
This article was published on ianVisits
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