(MUSIC) GREEN SILAS Charles Colliers Original Silas Green fr

Sale 2308 - Lot 465

Price Realized: $ 390

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 800

(MUSIC.) GREEN, SILAS. Charles Colliers' Original Silas Green from New Orleans. Silk-screened orange, blue and white poster, 28 x 21 inches; archival repair to reverse covering a short, closed tear. Np, circa 1930's-1950's

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"Silas Green from New Orleans" was an African American owned and run variety tent show, which in various forms toured the Southern states between about 1904 and 1957. Part revue, part musical comedy, part minstrel show, the show told the adventures of short, "coal-black" Silas Green and tall, "tannish" Lilas Bean. In 1940, Time Magazine said of the show:- "This year their troubles start when they go to a hospital with suitcases labeled M.D. (Mule Drivers), are mistaken for two medics, end in jail. The show is garnished with such slapstick as putting a patient to sleep by letting him smell an old shoe, such gags as "Your head sets on one end of your spine and you set on the other." Silas gets broad at times, but never really dirty. What keeps it moving are its dances and specialty acts, its gold-toothed but good-looking chorus." From the paper and printing style, this poster, while not dated seems to be from the late 1920's to perhaps 1950.