Prof. Bourdini

Welcome to the Magic Poster Tour at Poe’s Magic Theatre, inside the historic Lord Baltimore Hotel.

This stop features Prof. Bourdini, a historical, undated piece billed as “Séance Mystérieuse.”

The poster uses a sharp blue, black, cream, and yellow palette. A formal portrait sits inside a pale circular field while bats cross the blue sky. At left, a skeleton blows a trumpet from within a curling black form that descends toward a flaming brazier.

The oversized French title, Séance Mystérieuse, and slanted name give the composition some of the geometric energy associated with Art Deco advertising. Death imagery, fire, bats, and theatrical darkness promise contact with forbidden forces without documenting any particular effect. The supernatural is doing the advertising, even if stagecraft did the evening’s actual labor.

A matching historical print survives in the Jaap Best circus-poster archive. Its lower-right seal identifies the Hamburg printing house of Adolph Friedländer. The object displayed here is a reproduction of that design. The commonly repeated date of 1931 remains unverified, and the individual illustrator and designer have not been identified.

The work displayed at Poe’s Magic Theatre is a reproduction of a historical design printed by Adolph Friedländer in Hamburg. Its exact date, individual artist, and the identity of Prof. Bourdini remain under research.

Reliable biographical information identifying the performer billed as Professor Bourdini has not been located in the sources consulted for this tour. The historical poster establishes the advertised name and portrait, but it does not by itself establish a legal identity, a venue, or a documented account of the act.

The responsible reading begins with the object we can examine. It brings together skeletons, bats, fire, a formal portrait, and a promise of a mysterious séance. The printer can now be named, but the performer behind the portrait remains a question. That distinction is part of the display: a poster can survive in far better condition than the biography of the person it advertised.