Hotsed By ECN www.e-cinc.com
Tribute Piece: Currier and Ives
Location: Eastland Telegram
215 S. Seaman (Front Of Building)
Listed Caption:
Nathaniel Currier and James Ives
1813-1895 and 1824-1895
The lithographic process of printing from a specially prepared stone was discovered by accident in Munich in 1796, and was introduced to the United States by Pendleton thirty years later. Nathaniel Currier was apprenticed to this first American lithographer at the age of 18. Currier went into business for himself in 1834 and a few years later saw the possibilities of using lithographed pictures for the news media. His first three important prints recorded fires, the third showing the 1840 fire on the steamboat Lexington. However, it was not until 1857, when Currier took James Ives as a partner, that the real flood of over 5,000 prints began and the coverage was extended to include news, sports, transportation, patriotic, juvenile, lanscape, and genre subjets. Three new prints appeared each week until about 1875, when the appearance of illustrated magazines and news photos put the partners out of business.
Currier and Ives prints were produced in two ways. Painters could make preliminary watercolor sketches, which were then copied onto the stone by craftsmen, or artists could draw directly on the stone. Printing in the earliest Currier and Ives prints were in black and white, with color added by hand on each copy. Later, with the invention of chromo-lithology, large areas were printed in separate over-printings of each color, while only tiny details of color were applied by hand. This preservation of 19th century life and events was not only historically invaluable, but also of great artistic merit. In addition, the low price to the public-25 cents per print-brought art into the American homes and greatly stimulated interests in painting and drawing.
Click Here To Go Back To The Eastland Outdoor Art Museum Main Page.