Freeze Brothers (William Fries & partner) | Tambourine spinners and jugglers

Freeze Brothers (William Fries & partner)

Primrose & West's Big Minstrels. All White Performers. The Great Novelty Pair. Freeze Brothers the Most Wonderful Tambourine Jugglers. Cincinnati & New York: The Strobridge Lith. Co., 1897

Color lithograph poster (30 3/4 x 40 in.; 782 x 1020 mm). Laid down on linen.

The Freeze brothers—"The Most Marvelous Act on the American Stage Each Spinning No Less than 16 Tambourines at One Time"—performed in minstrel shows, vaudeville, and circuses from 1879 until 1909. Apart from Billy Fries, there is no consensus about the members of the act. At least two partners, billed, respectively, as Lawrence and Frank, performed with William, but it is not generally accepted that either was actually Billy's brother. However, Edward Le Roy Rice's Monarchs of Minstrelsy, from "Daddy" Rice to Date (New York, 1911) maintains that not only were all three brothers, but that the act was managed by yet another brother, John.

This design was slightly reworked the next year, when the Primrose & West partnership was dissolved and the tambourine jugglers joined William H. West's Big Minstrel Jubilee. The West issue of the poster dropped the phrase "All White Performers."

The present poster is found in the minstrel poster collection of the Library of Congress, but is very uncommon on the market.

REFERENCE:

Examplars, pp. 288–89