Hand Carved Basswood Printing Blocks From 20th Century Traveling Shows

The gorgeous large advertising and movie posters that were popular in the 20th century were mostly printed using color lithography, a wonderful, but complicated and expensive process. For more modest budgets, and for traveling shows where the signage had to change based on locale, woodblock printing was a much more economical approach. I was at the Poster House Museum, one of New York's best small museums, this past weekend to see their to see their fabulous new exhibit "Act Black: Posters from Black American Stage & Screen." And while the color prints for the movies are spectacular, I was also drawn to the very simple, but large basswood wood blocks that were used to promote traveling shows and other events. These are fairly large blocks, all of basswood, with large blank spaces where you could separately add extra text and imagery for a custom design based on each venue. The printing blocks in this show are from 1925 or 1946, but the prints are recent "restrikes" made from the…