Deceptive Strategies in the Miniature Illusions of Close-Up Magic

Abstract

As the Golden Age of large-scale conjuring shows waned in the years after WWI, a new form of close-up magic emerged and took shape in 1930s–1950s. As if anticipating the intimate scale of television, this era saw the rise of the sleight-of-hand artist who performed for small audiences on tabletops with everyday objects, most notably playing cards and coins but also various other mundane artefacts such as cigarettes, envelopes, elastic bands, thimbles, glass tumblers, and the like. This chapter examines the deceptive strategies and creative innovations that underpinned the success of close-up magic and considers how they extended the ideas of naturalism inherited from nineteenth-century stage..