About the Tillies

Tillie, the nutty, grinning mascot of Coney Island has here been anatomized. While there are many versions of Tillie, this series began with a photograph I took of his image that decorates the island’s Soarin’ Eagle roller coaster. Other Tillies can be seen all over the neighborhood: on fire trucks, a T-shirt store and a car wash. There is a similar Tillie painted on the Palace Amusements building in Asbury Park, NJ. All are based on a clown face painted on the Steeplechase amusement park (since burned) that George Tilyou built on Coney in 1897.

My process reveals, from within this single, smiling face, a hidden range of personality traits: maniacal, vicious, self-loathing, cowardly and supremely confident. “Tillie n. 5,” seen on this page, incorporates my original “Soarin’ Eagle Tillie” photo on the lower right, and is combined with the “Tillie n.2.”