Category: Vernacular Art

Roadside art from Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, where hand-painted signage can still be found in quantity, and some from Mexico City as well.

Montrose Avenue in Chicago has been home to a wonderful collection of artworks, displayed as signs by the many shops that line it. Sadly, much of the artwork featured below has disappeared, usually along with the businesses advertised, though here and there Montrose still boasts some fine roadside imagery. Back to The Western Avenue Art Gallery

Beauty salons and barber shops, despite inroads by chains, have remained bastions of individual initiative. That initiative included, at least until recently, their often strikingly personal signs. Unfortunately, hand-made hair parlor signs have followed the broader signage trend toward clip art and plastic. The relatively short lifespans of both the signs and the salons have made this changeover rather rapid. The signs below were photographed mostly in the first two decades of the current century, and with a few exceptions they’re gone. Styles range from folky to ultra-glamorous to barely trying, and there are even a few fine efforts on