David Barnett Gallery Landscape Prints
to
51
62
17
21
19
Overall Width
to
Overall Height
to
27
16
15
8
4
2
2
2
1
1
14
12
8
7
7
32
45
73
20
6
3
5
19
8
1
6
7
9
2
11
113
53
4
67
29
19
19
14
14
13
13
11
10
10
9
9
8
8
7
6
5
5
4
66
50
19
13
12
75
53
170
Eli In Paris
By Harold Altman
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Harold Altman was born in New York City in 1924. He attended the Art Students League, the Black Mountain College, the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, and was a graduate of ...
Category
Late 20th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Reflection
By Harold Altman
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Harold Altman was born in New York City in 1924. He attended the Art Students League, the Black Mountain College, the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, and was a graduate of ...
Category
Late 20th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Walking Couple
By Harold Altman
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Harold Altman was born in New York City in 1924. He attended the Art Students League, the Black Mountain College, the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, and was a graduate of ...
Category
Late 20th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
June
By Harold Altman
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Harold Altman was born in New York City in 1924. He attended the Art Students League, the Black Mountain College, the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, and was a graduate of ...
Category
Late 20th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Afternoon Shadows
By Harold Altman
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Harold Altman was born in New York City in 1924. He attended the Art Students League, the Black Mountain College, the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, and was a graduate of ...
Category
Late 20th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Silo
By George Raab
Located in Milwaukee, WI
9.25 x 12 inches (sheet), 8.75 x 12 inches (block)
Linoleum block print on laid paper
Framed 16 x 18.88 in
Signed to lower margin
Category
1930s Landscape Prints
Materials
Linocut
The Net
By George Raab
Located in Milwaukee, WI
This piece is an original linoleum block print created and printed by George Raab. The lower margin is titled and signed by the artist in graphite. The lower left has the title. The ...
Category
1930s Landscape Prints
Materials
Linocut
Silo, Sheboygan County
By George Raab
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Linoleum block print with ink additions on orange laid paper
Framed 18.88 x 15.88 in
Signed in plate
Category
1930s Landscape Prints
Materials
Ink, Linocut
Fishing
By George Raab
Located in Milwaukee, WI
7.25 x 12.25 inches (sheet), 5 x 11.88 inches (block)
Framed 12.63 x 19.50 in
Linoleum block print on laid paper
Unsigned
Category
1930s Landscape Prints
Materials
Linocut
Coal Boat, Milwaukee
By George Raab
Located in Milwaukee, WI
9.75 x 12.63 inches (sheet), 9 x 11.88 inches (block)
Framed 20 x 17.25 in
linoleum block print on laid paper
Signed and titled to lower margin
Category
1930s Landscape Prints
Materials
Linocut
Dam: Decatur, Ill.
By George Raab
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Linoleum block print with ink additions on mustard laid paper
9 x 11.88 inches (sheet), 8.88 x 11.75 (block)
Framed 16.82 x 19.75
Signed in plate
Category
1930s Landscape Prints
Materials
Ink, Linocut
City Hall Square, Milwaukee
By George Raab
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Framed 16.25 x 18.75 in
11.38 x 8.75 inches (sheet), 11.25 x 8.75 inches (block)
Linoleum block print on laid paper.
Signed in plate
Category
1930s Landscape Prints
Materials
Linocut
Milwaukee Bay From Pumping Station
By George Raab
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Framed 19.38 x 16.50 in
8.88 x 12 inches (sheet), 8.88 x 11.88 inches (block)
linoleum block print on green laid paper
signed in plate
Category
1930s Landscape Prints
Materials
Linocut
Sunset After Storm
By Carol Summers
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Original Woodcut in colors on Japanese paper.
Carol Summers has worked as an artist throughout the second half of the 20th century and into the first years of the next, outliving most of his mid-century modernist peers. Initially trained as a painter, Summers was drawn to color woodcuts around 1950 and it became his specialty thereafter.
Over the years he has developed a process and style that is both innovative and readily recognizable. His art is known for it’s large scale, saturated fields of bold color, semi-abstract treatment of landscapes from around the world and a luminescent quality achieved through a printmaking process he invented.
In a career that has extended over half a century, Summers has hand-pulled approximately 245 woodcuts in editions that have typically run from 25 to 100 in number. His talent was both inherited and learned.
Born in 1925 in Kingston, a small town in upstate New York, Summers was raised in nearby Woodstock with his older sister, Mary. His parents were both artists who had met in art school in St. Louis. During the Great Depression, when Carol was growing up, his father supported the family as a medical illustrator until he could return to painting. His mother was a watercolorist and also quite knowledgeable about the different kinds of papers used for various kinds of painting. Many years later, Summers would paint or print on thinly textured paper originally collected by his mother.
From 1948 to 1951, Carol Summers trained in the classical fine and studio arts at Bard College and at the Art Students League of New York. He studied painting with Steven Hirsh and printmaking with Louis Schanker. He admired the shapes and colors favored by early modernists Paul Klee (Sw: 1879-1940) and Matt Phillips (Am: b.1927- ). After graduating, Summers quit working as a part-time carpenter and cabinetmaker (which had supported his schooling and living expenses) to focus fulltime on art. That same year, an early abstract, Bridge No. 1 was selected for a Purchase Prize in a competition sponsored by the Brooklyn Museum. In 1952, his work (Cathedral, Construction and Icarus) was shown the first time at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in an exhibition of American woodcuts...
Category
1980s Landscape Prints
Materials
Woodcut
Landing Beaches of Normandy, French National Railroads
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Albert Victor Eugene Brenet was born June 25, 1903 in Harfleur, France, near Le Havre. He died at the age of 102 on July 4, 2005 in Paris. He painted primarily in gouache. Brenet is ...
Category
1940s Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Panoramic View of Milwaukee Taken From City Hall Tower
Located in Milwaukee, WI
The Gugler Lithograph Co.
Chromolithograph 37 x 120 cm. (image with accompanying text)
Category
Late 19th Century Naturalistic Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
"Westminster Abbey, " complete portfolio of 13 etchings by John Sloan
By John Sloan
Located in Milwaukee, WI
John Sloan's Westminster Abbey portfolio is among the most rare of his printmaking output, and a complete set like this is even more unusual. Etched in dark brown ink in on a sturdy ...
Category
1890s Ashcan School Interior Prints
Materials
Paper, Etching
"Sketch Near Pittsfield, " realist landscape ink sketch rural scene signed
By Stephen Parrish
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Sketch Near Pittsfield" is an original etching signed by the artist Stephen Parrish. It depicts a small group of buildings next to a lake. A path runs next to them, and the entire s...
Category
1880s Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
"Old Barns, " realist landscape ink print rural scene signed
By Stephen Parrish
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Old Barns" is an original etching signed by the artist Stephen Parrish. This etching depicts two barns in a rocky forest-edge landscape. The scene suggests nature's gentle and slow ...
Category
1880s Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
Black and White Etching Travel 1930's Realism Water Industrial Outdoors Signed
By Joseph Margulies
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Fishing Boats Gloucester" is a soft ground etching created by Joseph Margulies. The artist signed this piece in the lower right margin with graphite. This piece depicts several fish...
Category
1930s American Realist Landscape Prints
Materials
Ink, Etching, Aquatint
Art Nouveau Lithograph 1800s Landscape Romantic Figure Floral
By Georges De Feure
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Retour (L'Estampe Moderne I)" is a color lithograph by Georges de Feure. It features a woman with red hair in an environment of flora and fauna with muted colors and the Art Nouveau...
Category
1890s Art Nouveau Figurative Prints
Materials
Lithograph
"Silent Witness, " pop art original lithograph collage realist abstract signed
By Michael Knigin
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Silent Witness" is an original color lithograph by Michael Knigin. It features a realistic rendition of an Emperor Angelfish swimming in front of the New York skyline including the ...
Category
1970s Pop Art Animal Prints
Materials
Lithograph
19th century landscape etching farm field black and white figures pastoral scene
By Charles François Daubigny
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Charles Francois Daubigny's etching from around 1865 is an example of the Barbizon painters' preoccupations. Entitled "Les Vendages," the work depicts peasants bringing in the harves...
Category
Mid-19th Century Barbizon School Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
17th century etching black and white landscape forest trees river scene
By Claude Lorrain
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"L'Apparition (The Vision)" is an original etching by Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellee). This print depicts a religious vision near the edge of a river. The publisher is Mannocci #5 and...
Category
1630s Old Masters Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
17th century etching black and white landscape scene forest trees figures sky
By Claude Lorrain
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"La Fuite en Egypte (The Flight into Egypt)" is an original etching by Claude Lorrain (Claude Gelee). This piece depicts the biblical story of Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus goin...
Category
1630s Old Masters Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
17th century etching black and white landscape scene forest trees cattle
By Claude Lorrain
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Le Bouvier (The Cowherd)" is an original etching by Claude Lorrain. It depicts a shepherd with a herd of cows. This etching is also in the collections of the Met and the Louvre. It ...
Category
1630s Old Masters Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
17th century etching black and white landscape scene forest trees goats
By Claude Lorrain
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Les Chevres (The Goats)" is an original etching by Claude Lorrain. It depicts two pairs of goats and a shepherd watching over them. This etching is also in the collections of the Me...
Category
1630s Old Masters Animal Prints
Materials
Etching
17th century etching black and white landscape forest trees river figures scene
By Claude Lorrain
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Le Point de Bois (Rebecca & Eliezer)" is an etching by Claude Gellee (Le Lorrain). This etching is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum and the Louvre. Publisher: Mannocci ...
Category
Mid-17th Century Old Masters Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
17th century etching black and white landscape scene forest trees figures
By Claude Lorrain
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Scene de Brigands" is an etching by Claude Gellee (Le Lorrain). This etching is in the collections of the Louvre and the Art Institute of Chicago. Publisher: Mannocci #11.
5" x 7...
Category
Mid-17th Century Old Masters Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
17th century etching black and white landscape forest trees figures scene
By Claude Lorrain
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Le Patre et la Bergere (The Herdsman & Shepherdess)" is an etching by Claude Gellee (Le Lorrain). This etching is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum and the British Museu...
Category
Mid-17th Century Old Masters Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
17th century etching black and white landscape harbor ruins figures scene
By Claude Lorrain
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Harbour Scene" is an engraving by Claude Gellee (Le Lorrain). The artist signed the piece in plate lower left.
7 3/4" x 9 5/8" art
18 1/8" x 20 1/4" frame
Biography
Claude Lorra...
Category
Mid-17th Century Old Masters Landscape Prints
Materials
Engraving
17th century etching black and white landscape forest trees figures scene
By Claude Lorrain
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"La Danse Sous Les Arbes (The Country Dance)" is an etching by Claude Gellee (Le Lorrain). This etching is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum and the Louvre. Publisher: Ma...
Category
Mid-17th Century Old Masters Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
17th century etching black and white seascape scene boat waves ocean clouds sky
By Claude Lorrain
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"La Tempete" is an original etching by Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellee). This is Claude's earliest dated etching (1630). The work depicts a storm-tossed sea with ships on the verge of ...
Category
Early 17th Century Old Masters Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
17th century etching black and white landscape scene forest trees figures sky
By Claude Lorrain
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Le Temps, Apollon, et les Saisons (Time, Apollo, and the Seasons)" is an etching by Claude Gellée (Le Lorrain). This etching is the Fifth state (A). This state is also in collections in Paris (BN, L, PP) and Washington; Mannocci cat. no. 43. The inscription reads: "Apollo in atto di obedire al tempo. La Primavera a cominciare il ballo. Lestate no manca del suo calore. L'aurunno colsuo licore / Seguita. Linvernno tiene la sua staggione, Claudio Gillee inven.Fec.Roma 1662 con licenza de super."
A powerful example of Claude's staging of landscape in the classical manner is the etching "Time,
Apollo, and the Seasons," done in 1662 after Poussin's painting of 1624-1636, "Dance to the Music of Time...
Category
Mid-17th Century Old Masters Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
17th century etching black and white landscape scene forest sheep figures sky
By Claude Lorrain
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Shepherd and Shepherdess Conversing in a Landscape (Berger et Bergere Conversant)" is an etching by Claude Gellee (Le Lorrain). This etching is in the collections of the Metropolita...
Category
Mid-17th Century Old Masters Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
17th century etching Rembrandt landscape house trees field sky cow
By Rembrandt van Rijn
Located in Milwaukee, WI
This piece is from a collection of originally designed etchings with drypoints by Rembrandt. It is printed on Ingres D'arches off-white laid paper. The prints are the sixth and final state Posthumous Impression. Printing plates were made in 1650, this collection was printed in 1998.
Rembrandt van Rijn was one of the masters of the landscape genre in his prints and drawings. In his etching, "Landscape with a Cow...
Category
17th Century Renaissance Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
17th century etching black and white landscape scene forest trees figures sky
By Claude Lorrain
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"La Danse Sous Les Arbes (The Country Dance)" is an etching by Claude Gellee (Le Lorrain). This etching is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum and the Louvre. Publisher: Ma...
Category
Mid-17th Century Old Masters Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
"Le Prince Iris, " Surrealist Lithograph From "Je Reve" Portfolio
By André Masson
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Le Prince Iris" is an original color lithograph by Andre Masson. The artist signed the piece lower right in pencil and wrote the edition number, H.C. XXV/X...
Category
1970s Surrealist Figurative Prints
Materials
Lithograph
"Les Patineurs, " Etching of a Winter Landscape signed by James Ensor
By James Ensor
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Les Patineurs" is a signed etching by James Ensor. It is from the Loÿs Delteil 65 volume XIX and depicts a multitude of skaters on a frozen pond. "Les Patineurs" is the French word ...
Category
Late 19th Century Realist Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
"Please, Mister, Don't Be Careless" Vintage Poster featuring Disney Characters
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Printed in 1943, by the U.S. Government Printing Office for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service. The poster features the beloved Disney characters, Bambi (deer), Thumper (rabbit), and Flower (skunk) in wide-eyed shock leaning towards fear. With the slogan "Please, Mister, don't be careless" the poster is designed to tug at the heartstrings of the viewer and make them consider what actions they could take in their own lives to prevent forest fires.
Poster: 20" x 14 1/4"
Frame: 30" x 22 1/2"
Framed to conservation standards with a 100% cotton fiber matboard border and UV clear glass that filters 99% of UV Rays. UV Rays can be especially damaging and cause fading to the inks used in poster making. All of these features are housed in a contemporary natural wood frame.
Smokey Bear...
Category
1940s Other Art Style Animal Prints
Materials
Lithograph
"Le Retour (Return), " Color Lithograph after Painting by Rene Magritte
By René Magritte
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Le Retour (Return)" is a color lithograph after the original 1940 painting by Rene Magritte. A bird which is really just the sky in the day and clouds. A nest bellow the bird has th...
Category
Early 2000s Surrealist Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
"The Long White Road, " Landscape Wood Engraving
By Lowell Merritt Lee
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"The Long White Road" is an original wood engraving by Lowell Merritt Lee. A long white road stretches past empty barren trees under a cloudy sky.
Image: 6" x 5"
Framed: 15.37" x 1...
Category
1930s American Modern Landscape Prints
Materials
Woodcut
"La Tempete (The Tempest)" an Etching
By Claude Lorrain
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"La Tempete" is an original etching by Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellee). This is Claude's earliest dated etching (1630). The work depicts a storm-tossed sea with ships on the verge of ...
Category
Early 17th Century Old Masters Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
"Passage a Village, " Original Drypoint, Signed
By Hermine David
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Passage a Village" is an original drypoint print by Hermine David. It depicts a number of figures on a path into a village using various forms of transportation. This piece is edition 120/150.
11" x 9 3/4" art
21 5/8" x 17" frame
Hermine Lionette Cartan David (19 April 1886 in Paris-1 December 1970 in Bry-sur-Marne) was a French painter and the wife of Jules Pascin. She was also a great-granddaughter of the revolutionary painter Jacques-Louis David.
Hermine David was one of the Ecole de Paris...
Category
1920s Landscape Prints
Materials
Drypoint
19th century color lithograph nature figure winter scene trees snow river
By Currier & Ives
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Deer Shooting in the Northern Woods" is an original hand-colored lithograph by Currier & Ives. It depicts a landscape with a hunter aiming his gun at a deer on a winter day.
10" x 14" art
19 1/2" x 23 1/4" frame
Nathaniel Currier was a tall introspective man with a melancholy nature. He could captivate people with his piercing stare or charm them with his sparkling blue eyes. Nathaniel was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts on March 27th, 1813, the second of four children. His parents, Nathaniel and Hannah Currier, were distant cousins who lived a humble yet spartan life. When Nathaniel was eight years old, tragedy struck. Nathaniel’s father unexpectedly passed away leaving Nathaniel and his eleven-year-old brother Lorenzo to provide for the family. In addition to their mother, Nathaniel and Lorenzo had to care for six-year-old sister Elizabeth and two-year-old brother Charles. Nathaniel worked a series of odd jobs to support the family, and at fifteen, he started what would become a life-long career when he apprenticed in the Boston lithography shop of William and John Pendleton.
A Bavarian gentleman named Alois Senefelder invented lithography just 30 years prior to young Nat Currier’s apprenticeship. While under the employ of the brothers Pendleton, Nat was taught the art of lithography by the firm’s chief printer, a French national named Dubois, who brought the lithography trade to America.
Lithography involves grinding a piece of limestone flat and smooth then drawing in mirror image on the stone with a special grease pencil. After the image is completed, the stone is etched with a solution of aqua fortis leaving the greased areas in slight relief. Water is then used to wet the stone and greased-ink is rolled onto the raised areas. Since grease and water do not mix, the greased-ink is repelled by the moisture on the stone and clings to the original grease pencil lines. The stone is then placed in a press and used as a printing block to impart black on white images to paper.
In 1833, now twenty-years old and an accomplished lithographer, Nat Currier left Boston and moved to Philadelphia to do contract work for M.E.D. Brown, a noted engraver and printer. With the promise of good money, Currier hired on to help Brown prepare lithographic stones of scientific images for the American Journal of Sciences and Arts. When Nat completed the contract work in 1834, he traveled to New York City to work once again for his mentor John Pendleton, who was now operating his own shop located at 137 Broadway. Soon after the reunion, Pendleton expressed an interest in returning to Boston and offered to sell his print shop to Currier. Young Nat did not have the financial resources to buy the shop, but being the resourceful type he found another local printer by the name of Stodart. Together they bought Pendleton’s business.
The firm ‘Currier & Stodart’ specialized in "job" printing. They produced many different types of printed items, most notably music manuscripts for local publishers. By 1835, Stodart was frustrated that the business was not making enough money and he ended the partnership, taking his investment with him. With little more than some lithographic stones, and a talent for his trade, twenty-two year old Nat Currier set up shop in a temporary office at 1 Wall Street in New York City. He named his new enterprise ‘N. Currier, Lithographer’
Nathaniel continued as a job printer and duplicated everything from music sheets to architectural plans. He experimented with portraits, disaster scenes and memorial prints, and any thing that he could sell to the public from tables in front of his shop. During 1835 he produced a disaster print Ruins of the Planter's Hotel, New Orleans, which fell at two O’clock on the Morning of the 15th of May 1835, burying 50 persons, 40 of whom Escaped with their Lives. The public had a thirst for newsworthy events, and newspapers of the day did not include pictures. By producing this print, Nat gave the public a new way to “see” the news. The print sold reasonably well, an important fact that was not lost on Currier.
Nat met and married Eliza Farnsworth in 1840. He also produced a print that same year titled Awful Conflagration of the Steamboat Lexington in Long Island Sound on Monday Evening, January 18, 1840, by which melancholy occurrence over One Hundred Persons Perished. This print sold out very quickly, and Currier was approached by an enterprising publication who contracted him to print a single sheet addition of their paper, the New York Sun. This single page paper is presumed to be the first illustrated newspaper ever published.
The success of the Lexington print launched his career nationally and put him in a position to finally lift his family up. In 1841, Nat and Eliza had their first child, a son they named Edward West Currier. That same year Nat hired his twenty-one year old brother Charles and taught him the lithography trade, he also hired his artistically inclined brother Lorenzo to travel out west and make sketches of the new frontier as material for future prints. Charles worked for the firm on and off over the years, and invented a new type of lithographic crayon which he patented and named the Crayola. Lorenzo continued selling sketches to Nat for the next few years.
In 1843, Nat and Eliza had a daughter, Eliza West Currier, but tragedy struck in early 1847 when their young daughter died from a prolonged illness. Nat and Eliza were grief stricken, and Eliza, driven by despair, gave up on life and passed away just four months after her daughter’s death.
The subject of Nat Currier’s artwork changed following the death of his wife and daughter, and he produced many memorial prints and sentimental prints during the late 1840s. The memorial prints generally depicted grief stricken families posed by gravestones (the stones were left blank so the purchasers could fill in the names of the dearly departed). The sentimental prints usually depicted idealized portraits of women and children, titled with popular Christian names of the day.
Late in 1847, Nat Currier married Lura Ormsbee, a friend of the family. Lura was a self-sufficient woman, and she immediately set out to help Nat raise six-year-old Edward and get their house in order. In 1849, Lura delivered a son, Walter Black Currier, but fate dealt them a blow when young Walter died one year later. While Nat and Lura were grieving the loss of their new son, word came from San Francisco that Nat’s brother Lorenzo had also passed away from a brief illness. Nat sank deeper into his natural quiet melancholy. Friends stopped by to console the couple, and Lura began to set an extra place at their table for these unexpected guests. She continued this tradition throughout their lives.
In 1852, Charles introduced a friend, James Merritt Ives, to Nat and suggested he hire him as a bookkeeper. Jim Ives was a native New Yorker born in 1824 and raised on the grounds of Bellevue Hospital where his father was employed as superintendent. Jim was a self-trained artist and professional bookkeeper. He was also a plump and jovial man, presenting the exact opposite image of his new boss.
Jim Ives met Charles Currier through Caroline Clark, the object of Jim’s affection. Caroline’s sister Elizabeth was married to Charles, and Caroline was a close friend of the Currier family. Jim eventually proposed marriage to Caroline and solicited an introduction to Nat Currier, through Charles, in hopes of securing a more stable income to support his future wife.
Ives quickly set out to improve and modernize his new employer’s bookkeeping methods. He reorganized the firm’s sizable inventory, and used his artistic skills to streamline the firm’s production methods. By 1857, Nathaniel had become so dependent on Jims’ skills and initiative that he offered him a full partnership in the firm and appointed him general manager. The two men chose the name ‘Currier & Ives’ for the new partnership, and became close friends.
Currier & Ives produced their prints in a building at 33 Spruce Street where they occupied the third, fourth and fifth floors. The third floor was devoted to the hand operated printing presses that were built by Nat's cousin, Cyrus Currier, at his shop Cyrus Currier & Sons in Newark, NJ. The fourth floor found the artists, lithographers and the stone grinders at work. The fifth floor housed the coloring department, and was one of the earliest production lines in the country. The colorists were generally immigrant girls, mostly German, who came to America with some formal artistic training. Each colorist was responsible for adding a single color to a print. As a colorist finished applying their color, the print was passed down the line to the next colorist to add their color. The colorists worked from a master print displayed above their table, which showed where the proper colors were to be placed. At the end of the table was a touch up artist who checked the prints for quality, touching-in areas that may have been missed as it passed down the line. During the Civil War, demand for prints became so great that coloring stencils were developed to speed up production.
Although most Currier & Ives prints were colored in house, some were sent out to contract artists. The rate Currier & Ives paid these artists for coloring work was one dollar per one hundred small folios (a penny a print) and one dollar per one dozen large folios. Currier & Ives also offered uncolored prints to dealers, with instructions (included on the price list) on how to 'prepare the prints for coloring.' In addition, schools could order uncolored prints from the firm’s catalogue to use in their painting classes.
Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives attracted a wide circle of friends during their years in business. Some of their more famous acquaintances included Horace Greeley, Phineas T. Barnum, and the outspoken abolitionists Rev. Henry Ward, and John Greenleaf Whittier (the latter being a cousin of Mr. Currier).
Nat Currier and Jim Ives described their business as "Publishers of Cheap and Popular Pictures" and produced many categories of prints. These included Disaster Scenes, Sentimental Images, Sports, Humor, Hunting Scenes, Politics, Religion, City and Rural Scenes, Trains, Ships, Fire Fighters, Famous Race Horses, Historical Portraits, and just about any other topic that satisfied the general public's taste. In all, the firm produced in excess of 7500 different titles, totaling over one million prints produced from 1835 to 1907.
Nat Currier retired in 1880, and signed over his share of the firm to his son Edward. Nat died eight years later at his summer home 'Lion’s Gate' in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Jim Ives remained active in the firm until his death in 1895, when his share of the firm passed to his eldest son, Chauncey.
In 1902, faced will failing health from the ravages of Tuberculosis, Edward Currier sold his share of the firm to Chauncey Ives. In 1907, faced with competitive pressures from advancements in offset printing and photo engraving, Chauncey closed the venerable lithography business and sold the printing equipment and lithographic stones to his shop foreman, Daniel W. Logan.
Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives are laid to rest along with their families at the Greenwood Cemetery...
Category
1860s Other Art Style Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
"Le Rhone a Avignon" Hand Colored Etching, Signed
By Armand Coussens
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Le Rhone a Avignon" is an original hand colored etching signed by the artist Armand Coussens. This incredibly rare print depicts a church in Avignon, where Pablo Picasso had one of ...
Category
Early 20th Century Realist Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
"Road Landscape, " Original Etching and Aquatinit
By Félix Bracquemond
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Road Landscape" is an original etching and aquatint by Felix Bracquemond. This piece depicts a shadowy path through the foliage. The artist signed the piece in the lower right and i...
Category
1870s Impressionist Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching, Aquatint
19th century engraving landscape bridge industrial river scene ink signed
By James Abbott McNeill Whistler
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Fulham A.K.A. Chelsea" is an original etching by James Abbott MacNeill Whistler. The artist signed the piece in the plate with his butterfly monogram in the lower right. IT was publ...
Category
1870s Impressionist Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
Late 19th century color lithograph art nouveau ornate bookplate foliage
By Alphonse Mucha
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Ilsee's Palace" and "The Princess's Creation" are two sides of one double-sided original lithograph by Art Nouveau master Alphonse Mucha. These illustrations were pages 67 & 68 of "...
Category
1890s Art Nouveau Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
"La Plage de la Panne, " Seascape Etching signed by James Ensor
By James Ensor
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"La Plage de la Panne" is an original etching by James Ensor. The artist signed the piece in plate in the lower right and signed, titled, and dated it below t...
Category
Early 1900s Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
"Zarathustra, " Abstract Volcano Woodcut signed by Carol Summers
By Carol Summers
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Zarathustra" is an original color woodcut by Carol Summers. The artist signed the piece in the image. This woodcut depicts an erupting volcano in simplified color fields. The editio...
Category
Early 2000s Landscape Prints
Materials
Woodcut
"Acquacaliente, " Colorful Landscape Silkscreen signed by Carol Summers
By Carol Summers
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Acquacaliente" is an original color screenprint by Carol Summers. The artist signed the piece in the lower right. This screenprint depicts a fountain spouting rainbows in the backgr...
Category
1970s Abstract Landscape Prints
Materials
Screen, Ink
"Door County, Wisconsin, " Landscape Silkscreen Travel Poster
By Schomer Lichtner
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Door County Wisconsin" is an original silkscreen by Schomer Lichtner. The artist signed the piece lower right in pencil and in the screen. This piece feat...
Category
1980s Contemporary Landscape Prints
Materials
Screen, Ink
"L'Entree en scene (The Emergence), " Color Lithograph after Rene Magritte
By René Magritte
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"L'Entree en scene (The Emergence)" is a color lithograph after a 1961 original piece by Rene Magritte. A transparent bird flies over the ocean. The body of this bird shows through it a clean light sky with fluffy clouds. The view around the bird is instead the dark night, stars shine at the top of the scene. Clouds blow by and the waves are turbulent.
Art: 20.25 x 14.25 in
Frame: 31.38 x 25.38 in
René-François-Ghislain Magritte was born November 21, 1898, in Lessines, Belgium and died on August 15, 1967 in Brussels. He is one of the most important surrealist artists. Through his art, Magritte creates humor and mystery with juxtapositions and shocking irregularities. Some of his hallmark motifs include the bourgeois “little man,” bowler hats, apples, hidden faces, and contradictory texts.
René Magritte’s father was a tailor and his mother was a miller. Tragedy struck Magritte’s life when his mother committed suicide when he was only fourteen. Magritte and his two brothers were thereafter raised by their grandmother.
Magritte studied at the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts from 1916 to 1918. After graduating he worked as a wallpaper designer and in advertisement. It was during this period that he married Georgette Berger, whom he had known since they were teenagers.
In 1926, René Magritte signed a contract with the Brussels Art Gallery, which allowed him to quit his other jobs and focus completely on creating art. A year later he had his first solo show at the Galerie la Centaurie in Brussels. At this show Magritte exhibited what is today thought of as his first surrealist piece, The Lost Jockey, painted in 1926. In this work a jockey and his steed run across a theater stage, curtains parted on either side. Throughout the scene, there are trees with trunks shaped somewhat like chess pawns with musical scores running vertically up their sides and branches sticking out from all angles. Critics did not enjoy this style of art; it was new, different, and took critical thought to understand, but The Lost Jockey was only the first of many surrealist artworks Magritte would paint.
Because of the bad press in Brussels, René and Georgette moved to Paris in 1927, with the hope that this center of avant-garde art would bring him success and recognition. In Paris, he was able to become friends with many other surrealists, including André Breton and Paul Éluard. They were able to learn from and inspire one another, pushing the Surrealist movement further forward.
It was also in Paris that Magritte decided to add text to some of his pieces, which was one of the elements that made his artwork stand out. In 1929, he painted one of his most famous oil works: The Treachery of Images. This is the eye-catching piece centered on a pipe. Below the pipe is written “Ceci n’est pas un pipe,” which translates to “This is not a pipe.” This simple sentence upset many critics of the time, for of course it was a pipe. Magritte replied that it was not a pipe, but a representation of a pipe. One could not use this oil on canvas as a pipe, to fill it with tobacco and smoke it. Thus, it was not a pipe.
In 1930, Magritte and Georgette moved back to Brussels. Though they would travel to his exhibitions elsewhere, their home going forward would always be in Brussels.
Magritte had his first American exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York City in 1936 and his first show in England two years later in 1938 at The London Gallery...
Category
2010s Surrealist Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
"La Bataille de l'Argonne (The Battle of Argonne), " Litho after Rene Magritte
By René Magritte
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"La Bataille de l'Argonne (The Battle of Argonne)" is a color lithograph after the original 1959 painting by Rene Magritte. The landscape is shrouded by ...
Category
2010s Surrealist Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
"Farewell, " Sunset Landscape Woodcut by Carol Summers
By Carol Summers
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Farewell" is an original color woodcut by Carol Summers. The artist signed the piece. This woodcut depicts a river flowing through green hills beneath a blood-red sky. The edition number is 20/50.
24 1/4" x 37" art
32" x 45" frame
Carol Summers has worked as an artist throughout the second half of the 20th century and into the first years of the next, outliving most of his mid-century modernist peers. Initially trained as a painter, Summers was drawn to color woodcuts around 1950 and it became his specialty thereafter.
Over the years he has developed a process and style that is both innovative and readily recognizable. His art is known for it’s large scale, saturated fields of bold color, semi-abstract treatment of landscapes from around the world and a luminescent quality achieved through a printmaking process he invented.
In a career that has extended over half a century, Summers has hand-pulled approximately 245 woodcuts in editions that have typically run from 25 to 100 in number. His talent was both inherited and learned.
Born in 1925 in Kingston, a small town in upstate New York, Summers was raised in nearby Woodstock with his older sister, Mary. His parents were both artists who had met in art school in St. Louis. During the Great Depression, when Carol was growing up, his father supported the family as a medical illustrator until he could return to painting. His mother was a watercolorist and also quite knowledgeable about the different kinds of papers used for various kinds of painting. Many years later, Summers would paint or print on thinly textured paper originally collected by his mother.
From 1948 to 1951, Carol Summers trained in the classical fine and studio arts at Bard College and at the Art Students League of New York. He studied painting with Steven Hirsh and printmaking with Louis Schanker. He admired the shapes and colors favored by early modernists Paul Klee (Sw: 1879-1940) and Matt Phillips (Am: b.1927- ). After graduating, Summers quit working as a part-time carpenter and cabinetmaker (which had supported his schooling and living expenses) to focus fulltime on art. That same year, an early abstract, Bridge No. 1 was selected for a Purchase Prize in a competition sponsored by the Brooklyn Museum. In 1952, his work (Cathedral, Construction and Icarus) was shown the first time at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in an exhibition of American woodcuts.
In 1954, Summers received a grant from the Italian government to study for a year in Italy. Woodcuts completed soon after his arrival there were almost all editions of only 8 to 25 prints, small in size, architectural in content and black and white in color. The most well-known are Siennese Landscape and Little Landscape, which depicted the area near where he resided. Summers extended this trip three more years, a decision which would have significant impact on choices of subject matter and color in the coming decade. After returning from Europe, Summers’ images continued to feature historical landmarks and events from Italy as well as from France, Spain and Greece. However, as evidenced in Aetna’s Dream, Worldwind and Arch of...
Category
1990s Landscape Prints
Materials
Woodcut
Photography Black White Landscape Outdoor Nature Adventure Travel Photo Signed
By Thomas Ferderbar
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Yosemite Valley" is an original photograph by Thomas Ferderbar. This is an expansive landscape show of the yosemite valley. An amazing black and white view that emulates Ferderbar's...
Category
1950s Contemporary Black and White Photography
Materials
Luster, Archival Ink, Digital
'The Basilica of St. Josapha' Giclée Print on Watercolor Paper
By Julia Taylor
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Milwaukee's iconic spots are captured in watercolor and available as hand-embellished giclée. They are printed on archival quality watercolor paper and specially hand embellished so each giclée is a unique mixed media piece of artwork. The artist Julia Taylor added special original touches to each print in 'The Milwaukee Series 2020'
Art: 22" x 21"
Growing up in a small farming community in Indiana, I learned to draw early in life. I earned spending money by sketching portraits at county fairs and illustrations in weekly papers. Art teachers in high school and college taught me ways to master drawing fluidly from life.
In college, my small stained glass...
Category
2010s Prints and Multiples
Materials
Giclée
'Three Trees' Giclee Print on Watercolor paper After Acrylic Painting
By Joan Dvorsky
Located in Milwaukee, WI
8" x 8" art
18.25" x 18.25" frame
In this artwork, Milwaukee-based artist Joan Dvorsky presents the viewer with an image of three blue trees that almost appear to glow in their envi...
Category
2010s Prints and Multiples
Materials
Giclée
Contemporary landscape watercolor building street scene with figures signed
By Julia Taylor
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Milwaukee's iconic spots are captured in watercolor and available as hand-embellished giclée. They are printed on archival quality watercolor paper and specially hand embellished so each giclée is a unique mixed media piece of artwork. The artist Julia Taylor added special original touches to each print in 'The Milwaukee Series 2020'
32" x 22" art
Growing up in a small farming community in Indiana, I learned to draw early in life. I earned spending money by sketching portraits at county fairs and illustrations in weekly papers. Art teachers in high school and college taught me ways to master drawing fluidly from life.
In college, my small stained glass...
Category
2010s Prints and Multiples
Materials
Giclée