July 2024 - August 2024. Curated by Kobe Jackson and Ali Beaudette

This selection of items from Fleet Library’s Special Collections showcases an array of work representing the history of chromolithography, one of the earliest forms of color printing. Bavarian author Aloys Senefelder, who, in 1796, invented lithography in Germany, introduced the subject of colored lithography in 1818. The process arrived in the U.S. in 1819. As an alternative to relief or intaglio printing, lithography printing creates an image using chemical processes on a stone tablet, usually porous limestone or zinc. The contrast of hydrophobic chemicals with water enables ink to adhere to the positive image and water to clean the negative image.

A chromo could take months to produce, depending on the number of colors present. Using anywhere from eight to forty stones, one for each color, a lithographer gradually built and corrected the print to look as much like the finished portrait painting or photograph in front of them. Each sheet of paper passes through the printing press the number of times of the different colors in the final print.

Chromolithographs, also known as “chromos,” during the Victorian era, populated children’s and fine arts publications, trade cards, labels, posters, advertisements, popular prints and reproductive prints of paintings. Chromolithographs were printed widely to meet consumer demand as mass-produced products.

In addition to work created between 1867-1944, pieces on view in this exhibit include contemporary Artists' Books that utilize historical chromolithography imagery as well as examples of recent RISD student lithography.