The Clowns Gallery-Museum is a museum of
clowning
A clown is a person who performs comedy and arts in a state of open-mindedness using physical comedy, typically while wearing distinct makeup or costuming and reversing folkway-norms.
History
The most ancient clowns have been found in t ...
. Established in 1959, the collection contains costumes and props from famous clowns, as well as a reference library,
and is home to the Clown Egg Register.
History
The collection is split between the museum's two sites, the Holy Trinity Church, Dalston, and Wookey Hole, Somerset, England. The museum was established in 1959 in Dalston and the collection was split into a venue in Wookey Hole in 2007. The Dalston museum is situated in what was the vestry of the Holy Trinity Church. It was threatened with closure in 2014 but remained in place.
The Wookey Hole museum is run by
Gerry Cottle, vice president of
Clowns International.
Clown Egg Register
The Clown Egg Register is an archive of painted ceramic and hen's eggs that serve as a record of individual clowns' personal make-up designs.
The clown egg tradition began in 1946, when Stan Bult, a chemist, and founder of Clowns International, took to drawing the faces of club members and famous clowns onto chicken eggs.
The egg gallery was created to forestall the possibility of accidental or intentional
plagiarism: an unofficial rule prohibits any two clowns from sharing a single
face paint
Body painting is a form of body art where artwork is painted directly onto the human skin. Unlike tattoos and other forms of body art, body painting is temporary, lasting several hours or sometimes up to a few weeks (in the case of mehndi or "h ...
design, with eggs providing a suitably head-shaped mannequin. Real eggs were originally used but were later replaced with ceramic eggs. The gallery is open on the first Friday of each month.
References in Pop Culture
- The museum is mentioned by
Spencer Reid in season 13 episode 17 of the American crime drama ''
Criminal Minds
''Criminal Minds'' is an American police procedural crime drama television series created and produced by Jeff Davis. The series premiered on CBS on September 22, 2005, and originally concluded on February 19, 2020; it was revived in 2022. It ...
''.
- The museum is additionally mentioned in
Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John Pratchett (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015) was an English humourist, satirist, and author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his '' Discworld'' series of 41 novels.
Pratchett's first no ...
's Discworld series book "
Men at Arms
A man-at-arms was a soldier of the High Medieval to Renaissance periods who was typically well-versed in the use of arms and served as a fully-armoured heavy cavalryman. A man-at-arms could be a knight, or other nobleman, a member of a kni ...
"
References
External links
*
Museums in the London Borough of Hackney
Clowning
1959 establishments in the United Kingdom
Dalston
{{UK-museum-stub