Oliver Twist ice cream sign, Royal Oak, Michigan

John Margolies
$85.00
Size

Add Custom Frame

Frames ship to U.S. addresses only. Framed prints ship in 2–4 weeks and are final sale. Full framing details

Add Custom Frame

Frames ship to U.S. addresses only. Framed prints ship in 2–4 weeks and are final sale. Full framing details

Add Custom Frame

Frames ship to U.S. addresses only. Framed prints ship in 2–4 weeks and are final sale. Full framing details

Add Custom Frame

Frames ship to U.S. addresses only. Framed prints ship in 2–4 weeks and are final sale. Full framing details

Add Custom Frame

Frames ship to U.S. addresses only. Framed prints ship in 2–4 weeks and are final sale. Full framing details
Artist Statement

John Margolies loved and respected the roadside attractions that once defined American highways. As a child, he was captivated by eccentric commercial structures and their dazzling signs—though his parents rarely stopped the car. That early fascination grew into a 30-year photography career documenting over 11,000 vernacular buildings across America. Oliver Twist Ice Cream Sign, Royal Oak, Michigan is our newest edition of Margolies’s sign-celebratory work, and joins our other two ice cream signs captured by the photographer, creating a super sweet suite (see Gary's Thick Shakes and Pete's Ice Cream Ely, Nevada).

Why We Love It

The image radiates simplicity, cheer, and sweetness, but does its name point to something deeper? Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist tells the story of an orphan navigating poverty, social injustice, and corruption. He ultimately finds redemption and freedom through kindness. The novel’s famous plea, “Please sir, I want some more,” is fitting for an ice cream shop (kids always want more!), but whether the shop’s owner chose the name for its literary ties or simply for the twisty swirl of soft serve remains unknown.

Margolies logged over 100,000 miles in pursuit of these fleeting pieces of Americana. His vast archive ensures that roadside treasures like this one live on, frozen in time.

Details

+ Limited-edition, exclusive to 20x200
+ Museum quality: archival inks, 100% cotton rag paper unless noted
+ Handcrafted custom-framing is available

Our quoted dimensions are for the size of paper containing the images, not the printed image itself. We do not alter the aspect ratio, nor do we crop or resize the artists’ originals. All of our prints have a minimum border of .5 inches to allow for framing.

Medium

Moab Lasal Exhibition Lustre

10"x8" | Edition of 5
14"x11" | Edition of 200
20"x16" | Edition of 50
24"x20" | Edition of 10
40"x30" | Edition of 5
Artist - John Margolies

John Margolies

Margolies was drawn to mid-century roadside architecture from a young age. On family car trips, these commercial structures designed to seduce weary travelers called to him even as his parents repeatedly refused to stop. Margolies took this boyhood unrequited love and turned it into a 30+ year photography career that took him all across America.

In his travels, Margolies took more than 11,000 photographs of vernacular buildings across America’s criss-crossing network of highways, main streets, and back roads. Though many of his images involved the architecture that defined car travel—motels, diners, gas stations, and the like—he also photographed the purely American quirk that lined the roads: buildings shaped like dinosaurs, a giant pair of dice on the mini-golf course, a gator-mouth entrance to a Florida theme park.

This eccentric style came about as suburban living boomed post-World War II, necessitating the creation of more paved roads, and more ways to bring travelers into roadside businesses. New building materials and techniques had emerged, allowing for playfully eccentric free-form structures to pop up. Signs, artifacts, and buildings ranged from whimsical to psychedelic, their main purpose an elaborate enticement. As the style spread, critics derided it as “tacky”, “florid”, and “ugly”. Margolies strongly disagreed: in his mind, these ephemeral pieces better expressed the story of 20th century America than canonical works that didn’t reflect the everyday experience of the people who used them.

It was this mindset that inspired Margolies to drive over 100,000 miles capturing a unique slice of American architecture and history, even as it faded. Much of what he photographed is now gone. A few times, he found out that he’d photographed a building mere days before it was demolished.

His treasure trove of images has been turned into quite a few books, most notably Roadside America, featuring a curated set of around 400 photographs. It was published in 2010, six years before Margolies passed away of pneumonia at 76.