City Fan

Published by SS (?), 1936

About this Item

"City Fan" is . . . a fan! A hand fan, to be exact. And a play on words, as in, a fan of the city, and specifically New York City, in all probability. On the one piece card fan are 22 chromolithographic vignettes, the largest two images, underlays, and with virtually all the vignettes to be perceived as not complete, the partial aspect of these suggestive of the whirligig of city life that in its rush no image is fixed -- that is our interpretation at least. Shaped like a palm leaf, from top of the fan, made of card, to the bottom of the wood stick handle, is not quite 31.5 cm tall, and the height of the fan part, 21 cm tall. The fan piece is 23.5 cm wide at its widest. The fan piece is stapled to the stick, which is exactly like what a doctor uses to hold your tongue town during an examination of your throat. We tie the fan to New York City because some of the buildings are vaguely like well-known New York buildings, such as the State Supreme Court building on Foley Square. Many of the vignettes could be anywhere -- one of simply a shoe on a man, facing one on a woman, or of three children. The vignettes come across like cells in a comic strip, and in fact the pale-ish coloring seems exactly what one would have found in a comic strip magazine back then. Not to be slighted, the back of the fan has a trompe d'oeil design mimicking woven palm. We think in some respects this is the more interesting side! We do not know who made the fan. There is only a tiny emblem that is probably two "S"s in a circle, but one might alternatively see a near swastika with all its lines bent.

Seller Inventory # 20570

Bibliographic Details

• Title: City Fan
• Publisher: SS (?)
• Publication Date: 1936
• Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Fans
  • New York
  • Americana