Americana

Some of the most engaging and attractive prints are those which were intended for display in homes, workplaces, taverns and the like. These were generally inexpensive and designed to appeal to the general public.

Currier & Ives provided for the American people a gallery of prints for the new mass market of middle class society. The firm was the most successful American popular printmaker, capturing the life and times of nineteenth century America.

Many American artists had their paintings made into prints for general sale or created prints as the primary vehicle of disseminating their art.

Prints showing children playing, families in homes, people working at the jobs, and many other genre images of our American past.

Chromolithography was developed as a means of producing colored prints at a reasonable cost, but it some became a medium used to duplicate the look of oils and watercolors.