CURRIER AND IVES

CURRIER AND IVES became America's most famous lithographers by perfecting the process of printing with treated stone in the mid-1800s. Currier and Ives prints, widely known and collected in their day, became the ideal art for a democracy, mass produced and affordable, but still of high quality. Over their many years in business Currier and Ives, and the many artists who worked for them, depicted both the mundane and the historic in over 7,000 different prints. Still reproduced today on calendars and cards, the prints have long represented an idealistic vision of the nineteenth century, with an emphasis on distinctly American scenes, both cultural and natural. While the firm produced lithographs of tragic current events, such as fires and war, collectors have paid more attention to their many sentimental representations of everyday life, such as sporting events and westward pioneering.

Nathaniel Currier began his printing career as an apprentice in Boston as a very young man. By 1835, having relocated to New York City, Currier had opened his own business, first in a Wall Street office and later moving to his famous Nassau Street shop. Currier's business included publishing, printing, and engravings, but by the time James M. Ives joined the firm in 1852 Currier had already established a reputation for his popular lithographs. Ives came to the firm first as a bookkeeper, but his responsibilities expanded and in 1857 his name was added to that of the firm. Nathaniel's brother Charles also worked with the firm, in an informal arrangement, and contributed to the business primarily through his invention of a new crayon used to treat the stones before printing.

Currier's first great success came with an 1840 print entitled, "Awful Conflagration of the Steam Boat 'Lexington' in Long Island Sound." This timely print was distributed with news of the tragic event, first in New York and then around the country. Its extremely wide distribution insured interest in future Currier works, and helped inaugurate a new era of pictorial journalism. "Rush stock" prints of newsworthy events became an important part of the business, but "stock prints," of city views, baseball games, horse racing, sailing ships, and home-life scenes, among many other everyday portraits, remained the primary topics of the lithographs. Numerous Currier and Ives prints depicted America's natural scenery, especially in tourist areas such as the White Mountains and the Catskills, providing remembrances for tourists or visual access for those who could not afford to travel. While Currier and Ives prints came in different sizes and carried different prices, the firm became most famous for its colored lithographs. Printed first, then hand colored by women working in the Currier and Ives factory, these prints became both beautiful and affordable popular art.

After Nathaniel Currier retired in 1880 his son Edward ran the firm with Ives. By 1907 both families were out of the business, which folded shortly thereafter. Although the lithographs never lost their appeal, and indeed gained in value after the firm closed, improvements in photography doomed lithography as the chief means of illustrating everyday life.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baragwanath, Albert K. Currier and Ives. New York: Abbeville Press, 1980.

Le Beau, Bryan F. Currier and Ives: America Imagined. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001.

DavidStradling

See alsoPrintmaking .