Art: Currier & Ives

Oldsters were amused last week at a Manhattan auction of Currier & Ives prints, which for 70 years have hung mostly unobserved in the parlors and kitchens of U. S. homesteads. Collectors and dealers lounging in the carpeted grand auction Hall of the American Art Association-Anderson Galleries, concealed their excitement, made their bids. A Tight Fix, showing a bear at bay, brought $1,600. It took $1,450 to buy Home to Thanksgiving. A series of six prints revealing The Life oj a Fireman sold at its record price—$760 Youngsters, wondering at the homely titles and big price, wanted to know who Currier & Ives were.

In 1830 a poster appeared in Manhattan advertising “colored engravings for the people, published by N. Currier, lithographer:”† He either draughted the designs himself or copied famous paintings, lithographed them in cheap, garish colors, sold them by thousands. During the Civil War, with Collaborator J. M. Ives, Nathaniel Currier made battle scenes, gave them to prize-winning essayists and orators in the grammar schools and as premiums in grocery stores to drum up patriotism. After the war the firm exploited and illustrated early frontier anecdotes, railroad sagas, Mississippi River steamboat races. They flooded the country with pictures of George Washington at home, baby looking at mama in the mirror and saying “It’s Mama,” baby looking sadly at mama and saying. “Where’s papa?” With the advent of such high-pressure imitators as the Police Gazette and cigaret-coupons, the firm died.

A few years ago collectors of early American glass, walking sticks, coffee strainers and teething rings fell upon the Currier & Ives prints. They began to boost their value as records of an artless age, some even insisting upon their intrinsic value as works of art. Prices mounted until now a “good” Currier & Ives print is worth about as much as a Chevrolet and rare ones can be sold to lift mortgages from old farmhouses.

†That poster was sold last week for $180.