Here we have a stunning WPA era painting of a lion tame doing his thing with the lions all annoyed yet in obedience. Let's get straight to the fact that this oil on board was done by a carnival painting in the 1930s. Yeah, I could tell when I saw the painting from across the room. The folk art vibe reverberates with continuous echoes. The lions' faces are so good. If you're looking for the killer folk art of carnival tarps with the manageable size to hang on your wall, look no further.
Here is some information Fiege:
The Great Depression was as hard on circuses as it was on every other enterprise, but during those years, R. G. Fiege managed to keep a circus job and to find enough spare time to produce a series of paintings documenting the life around him. Little is known of Fiege—his name does not appear in the vast files of Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin—but he was born in Ohio in 1887, died there eighty years later, and during part of that time earned his living as a sign and poster painter. He based most of his paintings on photographs and was careful to note on the back of each the number of hours he had spent working on it. Literal though he was, Fiege liked to include in his scenes the glorious, long-vanished gilt-and-crimson wagons of an earlier time; and so his paintings reveal more how Fiege felt about his world than they do of circus life in the straitened thirties.
The oil on board painting was created in the early 1930s in New York. The painting is signed and dated 1935 in the lower right corner.
The framed WPA era carnival artwork measures 23" tall by 20 1/2". The oil on board sustained a couple creases at some point in its history. There may have been some touch up painting applied along the creases. Please see all pics as they are part of the description.
I ship FedEx to street addresses in the continental USA only (no PO boxes). Free shipping on the amazing historical painting.
Simply, one of the best paintings I've ever owned. Execution, style, and history. Unreal.
