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A collection of fairground art and memorabilia, representing one man’s 40-year collecting obsession, will be offered at Bonhams New Bond Street this September.
Bringing all the fun of the fair to the auction house, the sale entitled The Greatest Show: The Fairground World of Ross Hutchinson.
Ross Hutchinson has been connoisseur of fairground memorabilia for more than 40 years, and the sale will feature an array of vintage and antique fairground figures and carvings, ride seats shaped as animals, games and posters, showing the depth of one man’s lifelong fascination with the fairground.
A live sale of 150 lots will take place on 10 September, with an online sale of a further 150 lots ending on 11 September.
The sale will also feature a three-week preview exhibition at the auction house, starting on August 12 to September 9. The preview will include all the lots from both the live and online sale and is free and open to all.
Ross Hutchison brought together his array of fairground art over the course of more than 40 years. Growing up, he often visited fairs across the country and was struck by the ‘line of trucks’ that carried the fairground sets. He remembers looking at the painted graphics on the vehicles in the dark with a torch, captivated by the magical and strange mix of history and make believe.
He spent his career working with antiques and vintage rocking horses, before establishing a toy museum in Lincoln in 1989, which he ran with his wife. He acquired many of his fairground pieces from ‘listening to stories, finding leads and receiving tip offs’. His pursuit has taken him across the world, bringing together items from France and America dating from the early 1900s, and tracing down pieces which capture ‘a kind of golden baroque age’.
Ross commented: “In 1977, the Whitechapel Gallery mounted a show The Fairground which amazed me with its display of forgotten objects and art. Dealers and collectors took interest and started looking for surviving pieces. First to strike me were the signs with their swirling fonts and gaudy colours. Then as a few carved pieces started to appear on the market, I began to really see the quality of the Victorian fairground art, carvings by skilled men working in the tradition of ships’ figureheads, tobacco shop figures and church decoration. Most of their work has been destroyed, and their names forgotten, with carvings burnt for the gold leaf finish. It has taken me more than 40 years to gather these baroque survivors together, uniting sets and pairs. It gives me great pleasure to present them to you.”
An important carved and giltwood horse and chariot front from the famous Wonderland No.2 Organ, commissioned by Pat Collins and made by Orton & Spooner, circa 1906, which now leads the auction, was bought from Bill Hunt who was the son of Pat Collins’ business partner, Tom Hunt. Having survived a plan for it to be burned, the chariot front was being stored in a barn by the time it was acquired by Ross Hutchinson. It has since been cleaned and returned to its former glory. It has an estimate of £30,000-50,000.
Other highlights of the sale include:
- An important American horse race game made by the Williams Amusement Device Co., Denver, circa 1920s. Estimate: £8,000-12,000
- The English Execution: a coin operated ‘working model’ machine made by Charles Ahrens, circa 1930s. Estimate: £4,000-6,000
- An English carved and painted galloping double-seater figure of a dragon attributed to John Anderson, circa 1900. Estimate: £4,000-6,000.
Charlie Thomas, UK Group Director for House Sales and Private & Iconic Collections at Bonhams, commented: “Fairgrounds loom large in the cultural imagination as a thing of magic and childlike wonder. They often have an otherworldly quality, which is seen in Ross Hutchinson’s extraordinary assortment. This sale really is The Greatest Show, with pieces made by some of most respected creators of fairground fixtures from the height of their appeal in the early 20th century. It will transport visitors into another world. It encapsulates all the fun of the fair.”
Though one of the earliest recorded fairs was Bartholomew Fair in 1133, it was in the 18th and 19th centuries that the funfair came into being. They were attended by rich and poor alike and only grew in the late 19th century and early 20th century when the first mechanical carousels were introduced. One of the oldest known fairs in the UK, Nottingham Goose Fair, started as a livestock and trade event, before becoming famous for its fairground attractions. It is held annually, with the only exceptions being in 1646 after an outbreak of the bubonic plague, for periods during the First and Second World Wars, and in 2020 and 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
