Currier & Ives

Nathaniel Currier (1813-1895) set up in business for himself in 1834, exploiting the new technique of colour lithography as a form of journalism, which no-one had done before. His first three important prints recorded fires. After 1857, when he went into partnership with his fellow lithographer James Ives (1824-1895), their output was prodigious, more than 5000 prints being published. Three new prints were issued each week until 1875: news events, sports, trains and boats, children, landscapes and genre subjects poured from their presses and made art accessible to the average American for the first time. Their work was of far higher standard than any competitor, and they went out of business only after the advent of news photography and the rise of illustrated magazines made their lithography uneconomic. We stock a large range of Currier & Ives prints imported from the US by a NZ art education wholesaler.