D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts

The museum was which opened in 1933 was previously called Springfield's Museum of Fine Arts. It is now named after Donald D'Amour who besides being a member of the Board of Trustees of the Springfield Museum is also CEO of Big Y http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/exhibitionist/2008/06/the_damour_muse.htm

The Currier & Ives collection is one of the largest collection in the World besides the collections in the Library of Congress and the Museum of the City of New York. The collection is so large so it cannot be dispayed in its entirety, but is displayed in parts so that visitors will naturally come back to see more. The prints represent American culture in the 19th century. It includes the Revolutionary and Civil wars, Barnum's Circus, firefighting, hunting, city life, western expansion and political portraits. Many of the scenes relate to New England and are very realistic. Currier & Ives, produced two to three new images every week for 64 years (1834-1895, and it is estimated that they have produced a total of 7,450 different images. They employed or used the work of many well-known artists like J.F. Butterworth, A.F. Tait, Thomas Nast, C.H. Moore, Eastman Johnson, and Frances (Fanny) Flora Bond Palmer. Lithographs were produced on special stones on which the drawing was done by hand. The stone took over a week to prepare for printing. Each print was pulled by hand and hand-painted by mostly immigrants from Germany with an art background. They were paid $6 per 100 prints colored. The small prints sold for twenty cents and the large prints sold at between $1 and $3. The firm closed in 1907 and the prints are considered valuable works of art.http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/4aa/4aa436.htm

On display now through January 18, 20o9 is "Behind the Scenes, the Artists that worked for Currier & Ives". Here is a print designed by Fanny Palmer, called "The Old Homestead".http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/8aa/8aa119.htm . I really like her tones of greens, blues, and pinks and the shadowing used. Fanny Palmer worked for Currier & Ives for 30 years. She did not sign her work, but it is believed that she created thousands of prints and pained directly on the stones for some of her paintings.
The lettering on the prints were created by artist, J. Schultz. They employed hundreds of craftsman who grinded stone, printed, hand-colered, sold and obtained images.

I want to also include Currier & Ives web page which is very imformative. It includes a section on Printmaking, There is supposed to be a Virtual Exhibit Tour, but the link wasn't working when I tried it. The picture at the top of the page is called, "Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, and the Chattanooga Railroad".
Many battles curing the Revolutionary and Civil Wars took place at Lookout Mountain. The mountain draws many tourists as you can see it would by its beauty. Many tourists in the past traveled south on the railroad to Chattanooga and then rented a buggy for the four-hour ride up to the top of the lookout. Later some railroads were built near Chattanooga including an incline an incline railway to get the tourists up the mountain faster. The focus of Currier & Ives was on the beautiful landscape. You can see the train in the valley. The colors blend so well well in this print and seem so evenly distributed. Here are some other prints that I enjoyed from the permanent collection. It was definitely worth the trip. I was surprised that Salvador Dali also created lithographs. This is called, "Landscape Fruit and Flowers". These prints that I have displayed feel so warm.






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