Revisiting America: The Prints of Currier and Ives

Revisiting America: The Prints of Currier and Ives

Revisiting America: The Prints of Currier & Ives

Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut

October 2, 2021–January 23, 2022

Currier & Ives was a powerhouse of nineteenth-century publishing and had an immeasurable influence on American visual culture. Founded in New York in 1834 by Nathaniel Currier, the company expanded to include a new partner, James Merritt Ives, after 1857. Currier & Ives produced millions of affordably priced copies of over seven thousand original lithographs, living up to its self-appointed title as “the Grand Central Depot for Cheap and Popular Prints.” The firm took advantage of New York City’s booming arts culture in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but its output was not seen as fine art by critics, nor was it intended as such. Its prints were first and foremost commodities, and the choice of subjects was often determined by popularity and sales figures. Currier & Ives perpetuated Victorian ideals in its depictions of family, history, politics, and urban and suburban life—concepts that persist today partly as a result of the wide distribution of their images. Yet these prints also serve as important records of a nation in the midst of an extraordinary transformation from a rural and agricultural landscape to an industrialized and urbanized global power. 

The sheer reach of Currier & Ives prints, sold in their New York City store, or by mail order, pushcart vendors, and far-flung agents, put their pictures in view of countless Americans. The visually-based culture we live in today, with images circulating on the internet and social media, has its origins in the mass communications created in part by Currier & Ives. The firm closed in 1907, but the re-discovery of its prints by collectors and the public in the 1920s enshrined them as representations of American life encountered by subsequent generations in the format of holiday cards, calendars, dishware, and even whiskey labels. By taking us back to the period of the prints’ creation, this exhibition illuminates Currier & Ives’s America as well as our own America in the present day. 

This exhibition is drawn from the Joslyn Art Museum’s collection of nearly six hundred Currier & Ives prints, which was assembled beginning in the 1950s by Roy King—a collector committed to sharing the works with others through exhibitions in a wide array of venues. They came to the Joslyn in 2016 as a gift of Conagra Brands, who desired that these prints find an appreciative audience in Omaha and beyond. Along with their popular appeal, these images offer a new opportunity to uncover the complexities and contradictions of our history and help shape our understanding of America’s past. 

Unless otherwise noted, all works are from the Joslyn Art Museum’s collection.

This exhibition was organized by the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska. Presentation at the Florence Griswold Museum has been made possible with the generous support of the Department of Economic and Community Development, Connecticut Office of the Arts, HSB, The Aeroflex Foundation, the David T. Langrock Foundation, Mr. Andy Baxter, the Vincent Dowling Family Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. J. Geddes Parsons, Roy & Deborah Moore, Mr. & Mrs. Richard H. Booth, Bouvier Insurance, Wayne & Barbara Harms, the George A. & Grace L. Long Foundation, Mr. Charles T. Clark, Jeb & Dianne Embree, Dr. Margaret O’Shea & Mr. Daniel O’Shea, as well as donors to the Museum’s Annual Fund.