OMAHA, NE.- ConAgra Foods, Inc. announced today that it plans to donate its corporate collection of nearly 600 original Currier & Ives prints to the
Joslyn Art Museum, in Omaha, Nebraska. The prints represent a remarkably expansive pictorial documentation of the post-Civil War republic before the widespread use of photography.
“We’re excited to present ConAgra’s rare Currier & Ives collection to Omaha’s Joslyn Art Museum so that the entire community and visitors from all over the world can enjoy these historic works,” said Sean Connolly, president and chief executive officer, ConAgra Foods. “There is no better home for this artwork where it will be properly cared for and maintained in a professional, sustainable manner.”
Connolly added, “This donation is just one of the ways that we will continue to support the Omaha community, home to more than 2,100 of our valued employees.”
ConAgra obtained the Currier & Ives works in the late 1980’s when the company acquired Beatrice Foods, the collection’s former owner. Although portions of the collection were on display over the years at ConAgra’s Omaha campus, viewing opportunities for the public were limited, and the majority of the works remained in storage. ConAgra’s gift to the Joslyn Art Museum ensures that the collection will be permanently available to share with the Omaha community and beyond.
“We are grateful to ConAgra for this extraordinary gift,” said Jack Becker, Joslyn Art Museum executive director & CEO. “These works will complement Joslyn’s overall collection, enhance our growing works on paper collection, and serve as an important cornerstone of our American art collection. Currier and Ives made their work available to as many people as possible, and that spirit is paralleled by ConAgra’s decision to gift this collection and ensure that countless visitors will enjoy it in the years to come.”
Currier and Ives was a New York based publishing company, founded by lithographer Nathaniel Currier (1813–1888) in 1835. James Merritt Ives (1824–1895) joined the firm first as an accountant, and was later made a full partner. Currier and Ives advertised themselves as visual journalists of the nineteenth-century, producing lithographic and chromolithographic print images of American life, including sporting life, landscapes, industry, politics, fashion, and current events. Their prints were marketed as “the best and cheapest, and the most popular pictures in the world.” The firm employed noted artists including Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, George Durrie, Eastman Johnson, Frances Flora Bond Palmer, and George Innes, and new commercial lithography techniques that allowed more copies to be printed from a single stone and faster, more efficient output. The publishers were able to distribute illustrations of current events within days of their occurrence, and sell them at affordable prices.
From the 1830s to 1880s, the United States doubled in geographic size, increased its population from 13 to 62 million, and experienced an Industrial Revolution. A new economic middle class emerged with both leisure time and disposable income, as well as the desire to decorate its homes with affordable art. Currier and Ives established a wholesale business by mail to grant dealers in cities beyond the New York region discounted bulk pricing for their work. Prints were shipped across the country and as far away as Europe to be resold for twenty cents to three dollars, depending on size. Its catalogue reads like a narrative of the American story, documenting historical events and an array of idealized, celebratory scenes eagerly sought by the public. Altogether, the firm created between 7,000 and 8,000 scenes that were reproduced as hand-colored prints that sold in uncounted millions of copies — at one point 95 percent of all lithographs in circulation in the United States were theirs.
