The egg clowns cometh: the world's maddest, most charming copyright record

The egg clowns cometh: the world's maddest, most charming copyright record - Telegraph.co.uk

Posted: 19 Mar 2017 12:00 AM PDT

In 2007, when the photographer Luke Stephenson was in a church in east London, the vicar asked him something quite unexpected: "Do you want to see the clown museum? Because they're moving out."

"Well, I wasn't going to turn that down," Stephenson tells me. Inside, he found in a "little chest on the wall" an astonishing trove: eggs upon eggs, painted with clown faces.

Born in 1906 in Massachusetts, Frankie Saluto only grew to 3ft 10. He ascended quickly at Barnum & Bailey Circus, where he worked with a rabbit called Bun. He was chosen by his peers "Most Popular Clown" before he retired in 1974. Credit: Luke Stephenson

Holy Trinity Church in Dalston is also known as the Clowns' Church, and in it Stephenson had stumbled across the world's maddest, most charming piece of bureaucracy – the Clown Egg Register. In the foreword to his new book, for which he photographed 169 of the eggs, Stephenson explains: "It is an unwritten rule within clowning that no clown should copy another clown's look." The register acts as "a record of copyright" for all the members of Clowns International, a club that is the closest thing clowns have to a union.

Valerie Ashcroft (aka Lulubelle), born in Bristol, lost her father when she was very young, and had to help raise her two younger siblings. As an adult, she devised the persona of Lulubelle, a friendly little girl clown of about eight years old, to exorcise her sadness. She no longer clowns. Credit: Luke Stephenson

In Dalston, they keep the egg portraits of "the famous old-school clowns", including a posthumous egg for Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1837), the first clown; the rest live in Wookey Hole, in Somerset. In all, there are 250 eggs, and counting.

The Clown Egg Register is as old as Clowns International itself – begun in 1947 when Stan Bult, the founder, started to paint clowns' faces onto blown chicken eggs as a hobby. Only 24 of his fragile works survive: many were damaged or destroyed while on loan in 1965; after his death a year later, the tradition began to wither.

Louise Craston Adams (aka Lulu Adams) was born in England in 1899, the daughter of a famous Victorian clown and bareback rider. She was the first female clown to appear at Olympia in London, in a curly white wig. Credit: Luke Stephenson

Born near Liverpool, Arthur Vercoe Pedlar (aka Clown Vercoe) first became interested in clowns when in 1938, aged six, he saw hobo clown Emmett Kelly (see below) perform. He started clowning at boarding school, later specialising in unicycles. He was one of four foreign clowns invited to Russia to perform in St Petersburg, 1991. Credit: Luke Stephenson

But other artists stepped into Bult's (enormous) shoes in 1984, when Clown Bluey, the new chairman of Clowns International, decided it was time to revive the practice – on sturdier, ceramic eggs. Of Bult's successors as clown egg artists, Janet Webb and Kate Stone are the best known.

Webb's "early ones are a bit more primitive and have a very distinctive nose," says Stephenson, whereas Stone's are "the majority of the eggs in the museum, she's done probably three quarters of them and hers are the really detailed ones". To get a likeness, "many are decorated with snips of the clowns' hair and clothes".

Beato (L) is Harry Beatson and Uncle Fred (R) is his wife of 60 years, Sheila. Both from Sheffield, they've lived in the same house for 50 years. Their dog, Bess, jumps hoops and plays dead as part of their act. Credit: Luke Stephenson

The Clown Egg Register celebrates not just the delicacy of the eggs but clowning itself, "a dying art," says Stephenson. "A lot of the people aren't around anymore but these little eggs are testament to their achievements and their love of fun."

Each photo is accompanied by that clown's short biography, written by artist and former trainee clown Helen Champion. Many are funny: Lou Jacobs, a German clown born in 1903, was, according to Champion, "very tall but added a head extension to his costume to make himself appear even more so. Part of his act [was] to squeeze himself into a small car."

Rafael Padilla (aka Chocolat) was born to an enslaved African family in Cuba in 1868. Soon orphaned, he was sold to a Portguese farm, but he escaped at 14, and attached himself to a white-face clown he met on the docks of Bilbao. Despite the success of his slapstick act with another clown – Foottit – in Paris, Chocolat succumbed to alcoholism and died young, in 1917. Credit: Luke Stephenson

But the book is also laced with tragedy. Rafael Padilla, or Chocolat, for instance, was born a slave in Cuba in 1868, then orphaned, then sold aged nine to a farm near Bilbao. He ran away and joined the circus, later becoming a slapstick hit in Paris. But he died in 1917, a penniless alcoholic.

The entry for Nik-Nak reads simply: "Bob Sacco performed as Nik-Nak. He was devastated by the sudden death of his wife, who performed as clown Poppolino, and retired soon after."

Considered the godfather of modern clowning, Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1837) first played "Little Clown" as a child in his father's pantomime, The Triumph of Mirth; or, Harlequin's Wedding. Clowning stuck, and he came to dominate the London stage in his distinctive white-face make-up with red cheeks. A harlequin is still called a "Joey", in homage to him. Credit: Luke Stephenson

There's a gaudy silliness to a clown face smeared on a hen's egg, but there's also a terrible fragility. Sometimes that's part of the portrait, too.

The Clown Egg Register is published by Particular (14.99)