Getty Museum

[Percy Pape, Living Skeleton, Hubert's Freak Museum and Flea Circus, New York]

Date

1945

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

Object ID

7b2d22aa-5c99-44c8-b752-306f7636ede0

Lisette Model photographed this side show performer, Percy Pope, at Hubert’s Dime Museum and Flea Circus, on 42nd Street in New York. She first went there at the encouragement of one of the editors at *Harper's Bazaar* magazine, where she worked as a photographer. Located in the basement of a building in the heart of Manhattan’s theater district, Hubert’s presented other acts as well such as the bearded lady named Lady Olga and the fully tattooed Jack Dracula. Professor Roy Heckler’s flea circus added to the curiosities. An eclectic audience came in search of the bizarre. Lenny Bruce, Bob Dylan, Tom Wolfe, and Andy Kaufmann all frequented the museum. Always drawn to unconventional subjects, Model made several views of Hubert’s performances in the mid-1940s, often emphasizing their eccentricities (see also [84.XP.124.20](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/58753/lisette-model-hubert's-freak-museum-and-flea-circus-forty-second-street-new-york-american-about-1945/)). Model was not the only photographer to visit the museum; early in her career, in the late 1950s, Diane Arbus began shooting there as well. Regarding the acts at Hubert’s, she once wrote “We had our awe and our shame in one gulp.” Hubert’s closed in 1965. Appropriately, Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, another spectacle, now occupies the very same spot. Carolyn Peter, J. Paul Getty Museum, Department of Photographs, 2020

The authoritative record is held by Getty Museum. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.