Take Another Look at Cigar Box Lids

An Accidental Mysteries “Blast from the Past,” December 16, 2008.


THANK GOD FOR OTHER PEOPLE’S COLLECTIONS, because I don’t have the money, space or time to collect it all. I do have the desire to collect it all, but left brain (and wife) says stop. I found a collector, Robert Madison, who apparently loves the beauty, variety and history of cigar box lids. His collection is enormous.

I am reminded of the cigar box that Tatum O’Neal (as “Addie”) carried in the movie Paper Moon. It was Cremo brand. It was the perfect metaphor for those few things she held dear to her life. She carried it—held it tight everywhere she went. As a kid, I loved cigar boxes. I guess I still do. Cigar boxes are the perfect size for kid stuff—baseball cards, crayons, coins, secrets—whatever. Cigar boxes are kid-sized—the way they open is lovely and inviting. And as far as design, they always look so regal and important. On the lid was usually an illustration or name of some mysterious, important person, almost always with a strange non-Anglo name. And, because the boxes were so substantial, people saved them more so than not. How many garages or workshops in the United States still have a cigar box to hold nails, screws and other flotsam from their projects? Cigar boxes last.

The examples I was drawn to from Robert’s substantial collection are the ones that have the tax labels applied along the side and over the lid. Is there anything sexier than breaking an official seal? I mean really! The samples I share with you today remind me of early 20th century collage. The labels, haphazardly applied compared to the perfection and order of the lid, interfere with and force themselves into the carefully planned cigar box “landscape.” That is what I love the most. The tax labels were never designed to work with the cigar box. They were there to serve an official function—like a price sticker or a bar code on a product today. Besides that, I am reminded of something else—the whole role that cigar bands and box labels did throughout the 20th century to inspire artists. One has only to look at the early collage art of Kurt Schwitters, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Joseph Cornell and others to see the influences. And most recently, the discovery of the work of Felipe Jesus Consalvos, a self-taught artist who worked in the first half of the 20th century.

Consalvos worked in a cigar factory and apparently had plenty of raw material from his work to use (cigar band papers). Influenced by the boxes themselves, he utilized a similar visual “framing and border” devices he saw everyday at his job. Of course, all of these artists, trained or self-taught, pushed their “cigar box and cigar band” influences much farther. Consalvos used real cut-up dollar bills, magazine photographs, old wedding photos and all kinds of ephemera to create his surreal, fantastic work.

Also, be sure and check out the faux wood grain on some of examples above— a device the surrealists used often.

Japanese Boro Textiles

(Above) 19th c. Japanese cotton futon cover called “Boro” made from recycled indigo dyed cloth in patches joined together. Click image for larger view.

(Above) 19th c. Japanese Boro. Click image for larger view.

(Above) Detail of above. Click image for larger view.

(Above) 19th century Boro textile. Click for larger view.

(Above) Detail. Click for larger view.

(Above) 19th century Boro textile. Click for larger view.

(Above) Detail. Click for larger view.


(Above) Boro Cotton Kimono, Yamagata Prefecture (Northern Japan) c. 1900


I OWN A SINGLE JAPANESE BORO. IT REMAINS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OBJECTS IN MY COLLECTION. Boro textiles were made in the late 19th and early 20th century by impoverished Japanese people from reused and recycled indigo-dyed, cotton rags. What we see in these examples are typical—patched and sewn, piece-by-piece, and handed down from generation-to-generation, where the tradition continued. These textiles are generational storybooks, lovingly repaired and patched with what fabric was available. Never intended to be viewed as a thing of beauty, these textiles today take on qualities of collage, objects of history, and objects with life and soul.


Objects found at kimonoboy.com, and 1stdibs.

Who Was Harry Young?

Click any image for larger view.


Click any image for larger view.



WHO WAS HARRY YOUNG? WAS THE MAKER OF THIS RATHER UNUSUAL collection an obsessive artist with a penchant for cowboys? Was “Harry” (if that is really the artist’s name) a self-taught artist who had a wonderfully innate sense of collage, drawing and assembly—and this group of works just a fraction of his entire oeuvre? Or, was Harry Young just an ordinary child, infatuated (like many kids of the day) with cowboys and the wild west, this being the box of drawings his mother saved? No one really knows. Looking at more of the handwriting may yield some clues.

What we do know is what we see: a large intact set of small (6 to 10 inches in size) odd, child-like, compelling and visually strong works by an unknown artist. By looking at the work, there are stylistic hints that perhaps these works were done by an adult, like the collage for the faces, the attention to detail in the clothing and the sheer ability to create so many consistent works of a single theme. But more research needs to be done. It does appear the works are at least 50 to 75 years old.

According to the Packer Schopf Gallery in Chicago, “over 350 cardboard figures of cowboys, lawmen and horses were found in a large wooden box with the words “Harry Young, 38 Inkerman, St. Thomas, ON” scratched on the inside. The vast majority are hand drawn. There are a handful of figures that have “collage” faces, which are cut from newspaper ads for cowboy movies. The box also contains a lot of other miscellaneous items, including a wearable Marshall’s badge and a small, handwritten book of “laws,” which establishes rules for cowboy life, morality and justice.”

Judge for yourself by visiting the Packer Schopf Gallery website.

What to Do With Your Extra Stuff

Click any image for larger view and look closely!

Click any image for larger view and look closely!

BERNARD PRAS USES THE PRODUCTS OF MASS CONSUMERISM as the “paint” of his art. Sometimes using entire rooms the size of a basketball court, Pras recreates and builds images that at first confound and later amuse us with his vision. Pras, who is French, takes the French word collage to monumental proportions—not always in size, but in fearlessness of approach.

Via Bernard Pras.

Found Postage Stamp Collages

Click on any image for larger view.


Click on any image for larger view.


Click on any image for larger view.



Click on any image for larger view.



IT’S ALWAYS FUN TO FIND SOMETHING WORTH taking home at a flea market. Better yet, it’s good to find something quite outside the ordinary where a creative act has taken place. My friend, photographer and raconteur Francois Robert, spotted these stamp constructions a year or so ago at a flea market. Apparently, someone was moved to recycle a collection of used postage stamps—the impetus for many a folk artist throughout history. Whether it be a few hundred bottle caps, popsicle sticks, old sewing spools, soft drink pop tops—whatever— if there are a lot of something, creative people will often find a way to put the objects to use.

Otis Artists’ Book Collection:

(Above and next 3 images below) Crispix by Otis Lab Press ©, 2005. Click image for larger view.

Book opened, showing spine.

Inside spreads with “four-fold throw up format with long stitch into a mini-cereal box cover.”

(Below) Pop-up book (cover) by Carol June Barton ©, 1993. Click image for larger view.

(Below) Inside spread of pop-up book by Carol June Barton ©, 1993.


(Above) Inside spread of pop-up book by Carol June Barton ©, 1993.

(Above) Inside spread of pop-up book by Carol June Barton ©, 1993.


THE OTIS ART INSTITUTE IN CALIFORNIA has put forth an extensive effort to digitize their handmade artists’ books, available for view by designers and artists anywhere. With approximately 2,000 examples of every sort of art book and process imaginable (letterpress, pop-up, xerox, embossing, and every binding technique imaginable) this is a resource to know about for students and professionals alike.

The stated goal of the Otis Artists’ Book Collection was not to create a comprehensive archive, but rather to provide a valuable teaching resource available to art historians, artists, and students. Since the collection is available on only a limited basis, providing access to the books via online images was a priority. With assistance from the Getty Electronic Cataloging Initiative, the Otis Library cataloged the books and and photographed representative portions of each work.

For instant access to the Otis Artists’ Book Collection, click here.

Collage Maker

HERE’S A FUN SITE where you can upload your own pics and create a family collage or any other idea you may want to try. It is a beta site, still under trials and the maker is asking for participation. If you want to check it out, just click here.

Making A Dollar Worth Something

Mark Wagner: currency collage, click for larger view
Definitely, click for larger view!

Click for larger view.

Click for larger view.

Click for larger view.


Click for larger view.


MARK WAGNER IS THE KIND OF ARTIST I LIKE. HIS OBSESSIVE FOCUS on the dollar bill as raw material for his mysterious and powerful collages is apparently driven from an intense desire to reconstruct and reconfigure existing things. While many collage artists use materials from many different sources, Wagner focuses his vision on careful cutting and rearranging the greenback. And this art is not small! An average size for these piece is 24 to 36 inches and larger. Recently, Wagner completed a life-size collage of a female nude entitled Fortune’s Daughter, made entirely from legal tender.

Over the years, there has been a fascination with altering currency, especially coins. During the Great Depression, homeless men would alter the face of the American buffalo nickel by cutting away parts of the face, scratching and etching into the silver to create a “new” image. By doing so, these “hobo nickels” became more valuable than the 5¢ it was originally worth. An altered nickel became something of interest, a curio, and I suppose might have been traded at a local diner for lunch. Today, there are hobo nickel enthusiasts who take the art form quite a bit farther—thanks to modern power tools like the Dremel.

With the economic recent collapse, Mark Wagner’s currency collages have become beautiful symbols, worth far more than the number of greenbacks it took to make them.

Mark Wagner’s creative career includes writing, collage, and bookmaking. He is co-founder (and currently president) of The Brooklyn Artists Alliance, and has published books under the name Bird Brain Press.

Wagner’s work is collected by dozens of institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, The Walker Art Center, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institution. It has shown at The Metropolitan Museum, The Getty Research Institute, The Venice Biennial, and The Brooklyn Museum.

Wagner’s work is represented by the Pavel Zoubok Gallery in New York.