Hollywood Signs: The Golden Age of Glittering Graphics and Glowing Neon
Hollywood Signs: The Golden Age of Glittering Graphics
and Glowing Neon
By Kathy Kikkert
Santa Monica: Angel City Press, 2023
Hardcover, 176, $40
Reviewed by Paul Sherman
Movie stars aren’t the only names up in lights in Hollywood. Kathy Kikkert’s delightful Hollywood Signs: The Golden Age of Glittering Graphics and Glowing Neon stylishly salutes the ballyhoo afforded to such customer-craving attractions as greasy spoons, cocktail lounges, coffee shops, motels, bowling alleys, and, yes, movie palaces.
The structure is simple. After an overview of sign making and neon as both industry and art—specifically in southern California—Kikkert focuses on a succession of signs/businesses at a particular location (think Hollywood & Vine) or a specific business type. Each sign gets a portion of a page or a whole page with a photo and a paragraph about the sign and the business. Neither solely historical nor merely a current accounting, Hollywood Signs mingles the long gone with the still active.
