Vintage Neon: Images by Chuck Biddle

Biddle began his photographing neon signs to gather source material for his hyper-realistic drawings, focusing on historically or aesthetically significant neon signs. Over time, he realized that the drawings were unnecessary. Biddle’s photographic images preserve the elements of mid-century signage: typeface, logos, neon, lighting and placement, and especially saturated color.

“While my goal of one long act of preserving mid-20th-century signage has continued intact, the means to achieve that goal have come and gone, some within my control and just as many beyond it. Currently, a work begins with travel to discover a surviving subject. The signs have become fewer and farther between since I began documenting them.”

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website