Wisconsin - Prints and Multiples

"Chicago in Early Days" is an original color lithograph by Kurz & Allison. This piece features multiple views of the city of Chicago. 16 3/4" x 23 1/4" art 28 1/8" x 33 7/8" frame ...

The present print is one of several examples produced for Nathaniel Currier by his longtime collaborator Frances F. "Fanny" Palmer. Harry T. Peters wrote of her: "There is no more interesting and appealing character among the group of artists who worked for Currier & Ives than Fanny Palmer. In an age when women, well-bred women in particular, did not generally work for a living Fanny Palmer for years did exacting, full-time work in order to support a large and dependent family ... Her work ... had great charm, homeliness, and a conscientious attention to detail." One of a series of four prints showing American country life in different seasons, the image presents the viewer with a picturesque view of a successful American farm. In the foreground, a gentleman rides a horse with a young boy before a respectable Italianate country house. Two women and a young girl pick flowers in the garden and several farm workers attend to their duties. Beyond are other homes and a city on the coast. 16.63 x 23.75 inches, artwork 28.13 x 33.38 inches, frame Entitled bottom center "American Country Life - May Morning" Signed in the stone, lower left "F.F. Palmer, Del." Signed in the stone, lower right "Lith. by N. Currier" Copyrighted lower center "Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1855 by N. Currier in the Clerk's office of the Southern District of N.Y." Inscribed bottom center "New York, Published by N. Currier 152 Nassau Street" Framed to conservation standards using silk-lined 100 percent rag matting and Museum Glass with a gold gilded liner, all housed in a stained wood moulding. 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...

"Campions" is an original color lithograph by Sheila Stafford. The artist signed the piece in the lower right and titled it and wrote the edition number (24/24) in the lower left - b...

"Dalila" is an original color lithograph by Andre Masson. This piece, which features an abstract, surreal woman, is from Masson's "Je Reve (I Dream)" por...

"Two Rams Looking Down, One Quarter View, One Straight Ahead" is an original etching by Karel DuJardin. DuJardin completed many delicate etchings of ram...

"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...

Original lithograph signed VII/L Art: 23 1/8"x17" Frame: 32 3/4"x26 5/8 Signed and number lower margin. Claude Weisbuch was born in Thionville, France in 1927 and was a pupil at L' ...

"Original Lithograph III" is an original color lithograph by Joan Miro, published in "Miro Lithographs III, Maeght Publisher" in 1977. It depicts M...

"La Peine Perdue (The Wasted Effort)" is a color lithograph after original 1962 painting by Rene Magritte. Two blue curtains are parted on either side. Two curtain shaped mirrors show a sky and clouds. A ball sits right to the left of the mirrors. Art: 12 x 9.75 in Frame: 22.75 x 20.38 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...

The present hand-colored lithograph presents the viewer with a hunting scene in a picturesque landscape. In the foreground, a man approaches two partridges as his two pointers prepare to flush them out. Beyond, a white fence draws our eyes to the homestead in the distance. Images like this one show how people in the United States were trying to identify themselves as a new nation in the North American landscape - as separate from their European counterparts but with similar similar and specific wildlife and magesties of nature. It also identifies hunting in this landscape as an American pastime. 9.25 x 12.5 inches, artwork 18.38 x 22 inches, frame Entitled bottom center "Partridge Shooting...

"Brave Venture" is an original color lithograph by Michael Knigin. The artist signed the piece lower right, titled it lower left, and wrote the edition number (142/300) in the lower ...

'Hommage à Michel-Ange' is an original color lithograph signed by the contemporary artist Claude Weisbuch and shows the strong interest he took in the High Renaissance. In the image, Weisbuch draws from Michelangelo's frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel...

"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...

"Reclining Nude with Black Stocking" is an original etching by Warren Brandt. This piece depicts a nude woman lying on patterned pillows while wearing long black stockings. The artis...

'Mad Dash' is a print that exemplifies the work of Joseph Rozman during the 1970s, moving beyond the playful pictographs of the previous decade and morphing into an increasingly surr...

This black and white etching by American painter and print maker of the Hudson River School in New York: Thomas Moran, is a rare Klackner #53 of the catalogue raisonné, depicting "The Harbor of Vera...

This original color lithograph poster features some of the most iconic and beloved comedians of the early 20th century: The image is dominated by the figure of Charlie Chaplin, holding his iconic bowler hat over his head. Surrounding him are portraits of Harold Lloyd...

R. C. Gorman is better known for his images of colorful and elegant Navajo figures. This pair of prints, however, offers a view into his personal life. The pair of nude figures in th...

"Blue Bunny" is an original woodcut print signed by the artist Santiago Moix. It depicts a blue rabbit juggling yellow apples. 26 1/2" x 25 7/8" art 29 1/8" x 29 3/4" frame Santia...

"Boldest Flyer" is an original color lithograph by Michael Knigin. The artist signed the piece in the lower right and editioned/titled it lower center with graphite. This piece featu...

"From: Ilsée, Princesse de Tripoli Recto: "Flood" Verso: "Trials of the Pilgrimage" is an original color lithograph by Alphonse Mucha. Exquisite double-sided color lithographs from ...

'Improvisation 7' second ed. woodcut from 'Klänge' is a woodcut print created by Wassily Kandinsky. The present woodcut print comes from the second edition of 'Klänge (Sounds),' a book of original graphics and poetry by Wassily Kandinsky. The title of the album and of this print, 'Improvisation,' demonstrated Kandinsky's interest in music and how abstract musical forms could be translated into images on a two-dimensional surface. This particular composition is difficult to read, but through the abstraction, one can make out various figures and a landscape beyond. Originally carved and printed in 1911, this second edition print was done ca. 1938. It is a woodcut in black ink on woven paper. Signed with encircled 'K' in the block, lower right (from the book, signed in ink, ed. 117/300) Image Size: 7 1/2" x 5 inches Frame Size: 22 1/4" x 18 3/4" Ref. Roethel 124 Artist Bio: The Museum of Modern Art described 'Klänge (Sounds)' as follows: Vasily Kandinsky's self-described "musical album," Klänge (Sounds), consists of thirty-eight prose-poems he wrote between 1909 and 1911 and fifty-six woodcuts he began in 1907. In the woodcuts Kandinsky veiled his subject matter, creating increasingly indecipherable images (though the horse and rider, his symbol for overcoming objective representation, runs through as a leitmotif). This process proved crucial for the development of abstraction in his art. Kandinsky said his choice of media sprang from an "inner necessity" for expression: the woodcuts were not merely illustrative, nor were the poems purely verbal descriptions. Kandinsky sought a synthesis of the arts, in which meaning was created through the interaction of, and space between, text and image, sound and meaning, mark and blank space. The experimental typography shows his interest in the physical aspects of the book. Klänge is one of three major publications by Kandinsky that appeared shortly before World War I, alongside Über die Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) and the Blaue Reiter almanac...

"See Ya Next Week" is a giclee print on paper after a 1999 acrylic and pastel on grocery bag signed by Reginald K. Gee. A male and a female embrace in the foreground. The man's face ...

"The Catch (Les Mains du Pecheur)" is an original color aquatint by Le Corbusier. The artist signed the piece in the lower right and wrote the edition number, 10/30, in the lower lef...

"Le Bateau a Conflans/Le Paysagiste au Bateau" or "The Boat at Conflans/Landscape with Boat" is an original etching by Charles Francois Daubigny...

"Eve Incurs God's Displeasure" is an original double sided lithograph by Marc Chagall. On recto the print features the biblical story of Eve being scolded by God for her sin in the G...

"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 ...

"The Urchin (Le Gamin)" is an original etching by Edouard Manet. It depicts a young boy holding a basket with his long-haired dog. This is the second and fina...

"Obra Grafica" is an original color lithograph poster in red, yellow and blue by the Catalan Spanish surrealist Joan Miro for the Foundation Calouste Gulbenkian, executed in 1974. 2...

"La Grande Guerre (The Great War)" is a color lithograph after the 1964 painting by Rene Magritte. A Victorian lady stands in white facing the viewer. A bouq...

"The Walk" is an original lithograph on sommerset paper signed in pencil and inscribed to David Barnett. It is edition 68/75 and depicts a young boy in a striped shirt holding onto a...

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 ...

"Wa-Em-Boesh-Kaa, A Chippeway Chief," is an original hand-colored lithograph by McKenney & Hall. It features a portrait of a notable Native American chief, with informational text below. 13 1/2" x 18 3/4" paper 25 5/8" x 20 1/2" frame American lithograph publishers. Most well-known for "History of the Indian Tribes of North America," a collection of 125 images that included biographical sketches and anecdotes of principal chiefs. Thomas Loraine McKenney (1785-1859) served as Commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1824 to 1830. In that capacity he commissioned and collected portraits of Native Americans...

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...

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 ...

"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...

"Seul Dans l'Atelier" is an original lithograph by Claude Weisbuch. The artist signed the piece lower right and wrote the edition number (108/160) in the lower left. This piece depic...

In the mid-nineteenth century, the United States government set out to survey and document its newly acquired lands and territories west of the Mississippi. The goals of these surveys were manifold: to produce topographical maps, to document flora and fauna, and to document natural resources to build the emerging US economy. These surveys, and the images from them, also functioned to build the new sense of American identity with the landscape, condensing vistas into the 'picturesque' tradition of European image making. Thus, the entire span of US territory could be seen as a single, cohesive whole. This lithograph comes from one of six surveys commissioned by the Army's Topographic Bureau in 1853, which sought to find the best route to construct a transcontinental railroad. The result was a thirteen-volume report including maps, lithographs, and technical data entitled 'Explorations and Surveys to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a Railroad from the Mississippi river to the Pacific Ocean.' Along with the image, Stanley also noted in the report of the Maple River: "It would be an excellent plan for an emigrant travelling through the country, before reaching one of these rivers on which he expects to camp, to catch a few frogs, for the purpose of fishing in these streams, which abound pike, picarel, and large catfish. Frogs are by far the best bait that can be used." This note from the artist perhaps describes some of the actions of the figures in the camp in the foreground of the image. 5.75 x 8.75 inches, image 6.5 x 9.25 inches, stone 13.25 x 16.25 inches, frame Artist 'Stanley Del.' lower left Entitled 'Maple River' lower center margin Publisher 'Sarony, Major & Knapp. Lith.s 449 Broadway N.Y.' lower right Inscribed 'U.S.P.R.R. EXP. & SURVEYS — 47th & 49th PARALLELS' upper left Inscribed 'GENERAL REPORT — PLATE VIII' upper right Framed to conservation standards using 100 percent rag matting and Museum Glass to inhibit fading; housed in a brass-surface aluminium moulding. John Mix...

"From the Series Cheval et Chevalier" is an original color lithograph signed in the lower right by the artist, Marino Marini. It depicts three red abstracted horses and their riders ...

'Lobsterman's Wharf, Maine' is an original lithograph signed by Malvin Marr "Zsissly" Albright. While Malvin Marr – along with his better-known identical twin Ivan Albright – was known for his meticulous and unsettling magic realist compositions, he and his brother were also prolific in capturing landscapes of the coast of Maine where the two spent several consecutive summers away from Chicago over their lives. Sometimes these Maine landscapes and views would be painterly and seemingly antithetical to the careful realism of his other work; but in this example, however, the wharf is treated with the same macabre decay as his human subjects. In the composition, the shack...

"La Fleche de Zenon (Zeno's Arrow)" is a color lithograph after the original 1964 painting by Rene Magritte. A gigantic rock levitates over the sea. Waves crash bellow and a crescent moon hangs above. Art: 9.75 x 11.75 in Frame: 20.38 x 22.38 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...

"Projet D'Assiette" is an original zincographie print by Paul Gauguin. It is from the first edition of 50, created in 1889. 18 7/8" x 13" art 24 3/4" x 21" framed Paul Gauguin (1...

"Tempo di Minerva Medica" is an original engraving by Israel Silvestre, titled along the lower edge. This miniature print depicts the ruins of the Temple of Minerva Medica in the Rom...

'Gladia' is an original color lithograph by the renown printmaker R.C. Gorman. from Arizona, the artist's later works focus almost entirely on the female figure and take Native American and Southwestern imagery as a source of inspiration. Here, a single woman sits in a colorful yet undefined space. The oval shape of her broad seated form is repeated in the delicately drawn shape of the flower basket at her feet. The basket contains a bundle of multicolor gladiolus flowers...

This poster, produced for an exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum, features the bold work of American architect and designer Frank Lloyd Wright. Beneat...

"Flushing a Woodcock" is an original hand-colored lithograph published by Currier & Ives. It depicts two dogs at the edge of a pond going after a bird that has just flown into the air. 8" x 12 1/2" art 18 1/2" x 22 1/4" frame 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...

"November Morning" is an original etching by Churchill Ettinger. The artist signed the piece in pencil lower right and titled it in pencil lower left. It depicts two fishermen workin...

"Simple Things Are In Fashion. The Cow That Laughs." Authenticated by the Laughing Cow Museum Curator of Collections and History department. Artist is Jacques Parnel. Color lithograp...

"Galerie Maeght - 5 Livres Graves" is an original lithograph poster by Eduardo Chillida. The poster features one of Chillida's signature abstract designs as well as some information about an exhibition put together by Galerie Maeght. The poster is in black, white, red, and green. 25" x 16" art 33 1/8" x 24 3/8" frame EDUARDO CHILLIDA was born the 10th of January of 1924 in San Sebastian (Spain). His first exhibition was in Paris in 1950. In this year he marries Pilar Belzunce. He has received almost all the existing prices throughout his life: from the Biennial of Venice to the Kandinsky, from the Wilhem Lehmbruck to Prince de Asturias, from the German Kaiserring to the Imperial Price in Japan...

"Artiste Dans l'Atelier" is an original lithograph by Claude Weisbuch. The artist signed the piece lower right and wrote the edition number (126/320) in the lower left. This piece de...

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 ...

No. 189. Prestel. Ed. Ralf Michler and Lutz W. Lopsinger. Catalog Raisonne of Dali's Etchings and Mixed-Media Prints, 1924 - 1980. From the Secret Poems by Apollinaire Series (Poemes...

"Marche a la Volaille, a Gisors" is an original etching by Camille Pissarro. It depicts a dense crowd in black and white. This is edition 34/43 from Loys Delteil 98, 2nd State. 14" ...

"Calligraphie Heroique" is an original color lithograph by Claude Weisbuch. The artist signed the piece in the lower right and wrote the edition number (116/275) in the lower left. T...

"First Steps" is an original lithograph created by Jean Charlot. This is a wonderful piece with hispanic styling, showing a mother teaching her child how to walk. The mother is shown standing behind the child holding it in a fabric sling. The child is shown in the foreground leaning into the fabric sling as it starts to take its first steps. The artist signed this work in the lower right. Image Size: 13 7/8" x 9 3/4" Paper Size: 17 1/2" x 12 5/8" Frame Size: 23" x 19" Artist Bio: Louis Henri Jean Charlot was a French-born American painter and illustrator, active mainly in Mexico and the United States. Charlot’s mother’s family originated from Mexico City, and the artist was fascinated with Mexican manuscripts and pre-Columbian artifacts...

'Le Chef D'Oeuvre Inconnu,' or in English 'The Unknown Masterpiece,' is an original signed lithograph by the contemporary artist Claude Weisbuch – and it is an excellent example of t...

"Matinee a l'Odeon" is an original etching by Maurice Asselin. The artist signed and titled the print below the image. This piece is edition 13/30 and depicts three figures watching ...

"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...

"Beside the Dying" is an original signed lithograph by Ben Shahn. This print is from the series "For the Sake of a Single Verse" and depicts the head of a man in dark gray seemingly asleep or dead on a white background. It is signed lower right and is edition 27/200. 22" x 17" art 32 3/8" x 27 3/8" frame Ben Shahn (American, September 12, 1898 - March 14, 1969) was a painter, lithographer, and photographer best known for his left-wing political leanings, works of social realism, and The Shape of Content, a publication of his lectures. Shahn was born in Kovno, Lithuania, when the country was still occupied by the Russian Empire. In 1902, Shahn's father, Joshua Hessel, was exiled to Siberia. Shahn then moved to Vilkomir, Lithuania, with his mother, Gittel, and his two siblings. Their family moved to the United States in 1906 to join their father who had fled from exile. After settling in Brooklyn, NY, Shahn began to train in lithography and graphic design, and his favorite medium was egg tempera. In 1919, Shahn enrolled in New York University to study Biology before entering the City College in 1921 to study Art. He also studied Art at the National Academy of Design. In the 1920s, Shahn and his wife traveled around Africa and Europe to study the works of renowned artists such as Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881- 1973) and Raoul Dufy (French, 1877-1953). In 1933, Shahn worked as an assistant of Diego Rivera (Mexican, 1886 - 1957); at this time, Rivera was working on the mural at the Rockefeller Center in New York. Two years later, Shahn was recommended by Walker Evans (American, 1903 - 1975) to join the Farm Security Administration photographic group. One of the artist’s most famous works is the fresco mural he did for the Jersey Homesteads' community center. Shahn also worked on murals for the state on the Federal Security Building and the Bronx Central Annex Post Office. During the Second World War, Shahn made a series of paintings laced...

"Worm-Wood Hare" is an original color lithograph by John James Audubon. It depicts three brown rabbits in a landscape. No. 18, Plate LXXXVIII, On Stone by W.E. Hitchcock. 6" x 8" ar...