Sam Taylor-Johnson: Birth of a Clown

Hardcover | 24.5 x 0.8 x 32 cm | 48 pp

Steidl | 2014 | 9783865218537

In 1947 the International Circus Clowns’ Club began keeping a record of its member clowns’ make-up. Each unique make-up design was painted onto an emptied chicken egg that was catalogued and used to trademark the identities of clowns including the famous Coco and Grimaldi. Stan Bult, founder of the club, painstakingly painted the earliest designs by hand himself.

Birth of a Clown is Sam Taylor-Johnson’s photographic documentation of these fascinating objects, now part of the Clowns’ Gallery and Museum in Somerset. Taylor-Johnson stumbled onto the museum by chance and has now preserved these eccentric portraits―sometimes hilarious, sometimes sad―in book form.

Born in 1967, Sam Taylor-Johnson (Sam Taylor-Wood) is at the forefront of contemporary British art. Filmmaker, photographer and conceptual artist, her solo exhibitions include those at the Kunsthallle Zurich, the Hayward Gallery, London, and the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston. In 2009 Taylor-Johnson directed her debut feature film Nowhere Boy about the young John Lennon.