A lovely book of off-beat signs Lee Boltin found around San Francisco and New York during the mid-fifties. He was a commercial photographer who specialized in studio shots of antiquities and he died in 1991.
Signs, by their nature, seem to be a magnet for photographers. Those who worked for the FSA/OWI during the Depression and early war years frequently did shots of vernacular and commercial signage in the landscape and on buildings. Lee Boltin follows this tradition but with a lovely twist: he searched out signs that had an element of humor and irony that the creators might not have realized was there. Some are obviously deliberate, like BLIND MAN DRIVING on a van for a blind and awning company but what is one to make of MICKEYS GRAB & GROWL JOINT above a diner, STEREO TAPES FOR PEOPLE WITH TWO EARS above a record shop or ICE-COLD HAIRCUTS on a barbers pole.The book has a hundred photos, mostly close-ups of the signs and as the book was published in 1959 the layout reflects the neat and tidy design style of the day, fortunately, none of the photos are angled or overlap each other. This could well have been one of the first books that only had sign photos. A lovely unpretentious title full of warm sign humor. The signs probably disappeared years ago.
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