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Labeling America: Popular Culture on Cigar Box Labels
The Story of George Schlegel Lithographers, 1849-1971- Regular price
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Description
Description
Discover the beauty of cigar box labels and bands from the 19th and 20th centuries, printed by George Schlegel Lithographers and collected by John Grossman; currently being housed at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware.
Details
Details
| Pages | 320 |
|---|---|
| Publish Date | 2011-07-01 |
| Series | |
| Size | 8.5" x 11.0" x 0.0" |
| Author | John Grossman |
| Product Form | Hardback |
Reviews
Reviews
1
1965. He pays due to the George Schlegel Lithographic Company, New York City, that specialized in cigar box label printing. Labels include tributes to famous personalities, female beauty, and industry competition.
A librarian at the Winterthur Museum, Library & Garden in Delaware, introduces a highlight of the John and Carolyn Grossman Collection of printed paper ephemera: some 85,000 cigar box labels. Grossman has compiled this colorfully
1
1965. He pays due to the George Schlegel Lithographic Company, New York City, that specialized in cigar box label printing. Labels include tributes to famous personalities, female beauty, and industry competition.
A librarian at the Winterthur Museum, Library & Garden in Delaware, introduces a highlight of the John and Carolyn Grossman Collection of printed paper ephemera: some 85,000 cigar box labels. Grossman has compiled this colorfully
t
time Ephemera Society member, which covers 90 years of cigar box labels and bands printed by four generations of George Schlegel Lithographers. What makes this archive unique is that the Schlegel Company kept meticulous sample albums and files showing an unbroken record of American graphic style evolution. The work of many other lithographers of that era either destroyed or irreversibly dispersed their work.
Now housed at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, the carefully catalogued Grossman collection gives a glimpse into life at the turn of the century, when over 5 billion cigars were being sold in the United States via boxes with colourful labels depicting everything from women, animals, and sports icons to actors, heroes, and political figures.
This book takes these beautifully printed slices of American culture and combines them with the history of chromolithography into an interesting story of America's changing tastes and graphic standards.
Cigar box labels in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were not only amusing and beautiful to admire, they were a testament to the printing process of chromolithography and an important precursor to today's methods of product advertising.
Labeling America: Cigar Box Designs as Reflections of Popular Culture showcases the unique collection of John Grossman, long
t
tact collection of work that will fascinate
not just cigar heads, but artists, graphic designers, historians, antique enthusiasts and
anyone interested in American culture.
For decades John Grossman and his wife collected antique cigar box
labels and other printed imagery from the 19th and 20th centuries.
Today, they own the largest collection of American cigar label artwork
and ephemera. The couple have captured their life's work into a beautifully
photographed, coffee
d
definition medium of its day. The Schlegel archive's original art, proofs, embossing dies and litho stones are abundantly represented in this splendidly printed book. But the art is not the only point of interest. The text offers a brief history of how graphic design evolved from a sideline of printing into an integral profession. Among the most popular promotional genres, cigar labeling expanded throughout the late 19th century. "The popularity of cigars was big, but many of the cigar manufacturers were small," Grossman says of their inability to make custom labels. "The lithographers responded by creating myriad stock designs and titles that could be ordered by number." Schlegel's line of "sample labels" began in the 1880s, and many shown in the book are unaffiliated with any particular manufacturer.
The art themes run the gamut from exotica (Monkey Brand) to erotica (Art Club, featuring a naked rump), from historical (Gettysburg) to hysterical (Tampa Fad, with a rooster smoking a cigar), from celebratorial (Mark Twain) to educational (Vassar Girl). Only a few are purely decorative. And some, like one titled "Two Friends" showing a woman shaking hands with a St. Bernard, are nonsensical. Yet all in all, they are amazing examples of commercial art.
For anyone interested in printing history or aesthetic ephemera, not to mention cigar box art, this is a jewel of a book.
From the mid
1
1971", tells us that the Schlegel
Lithographers were very instrumental
in many other forms of advertising art.
www.instoneinc.co
Over 600 rare cigar box label images
are featured in this very informative
book; all in vivid color. "Labeling
America" gives a good overview of the
stone lithographic art process. Today's
printing cannot match the beauty of the
limestone lithography of yesteryear.
Pages 156 through 208 outline the
progression of label art from the 1880s
through 1959. Actually, I found it hard
to put this book down and I pick it up
again and again. It isfantastic! All
lovers of cigar label art need to add this
book to their libraries.
The Grossman Lithography
Collection is now housed at the
Winterthur Museum in Delaware and
is open to the public.
You won't regret adding this book to
your collection.
inStone now stocks a very
informative book featuring the cigar
box label collection of John Grossman.
Mr. Grossman has been involved in
collecting antique advertising art for
many years. Although the book,
"Labeling America" mainly features
Cigar Box labels, the subtitle, "The
Story of George Schlegel Lithographers
1849
1
1971 by three generations of the Schlegel family. George Schlegel Lithographers was one of the premiere American companies producing artwork for cigar boxes of the time, and this volume collects a wide and vivid sample of the artwork they produced.
Grossman applies his expert knowledge in an approachable but informative history of the rise and fall of lithography and how the cigars of yesteryear connected with the artwork.
The book traces the evolution of cigar advertising through trial and error, offering forgiving evaluations of a pioneering industry: "Some of the imagery now seems quaint, naïve, even odd. Yet the beginning of familiar advertising themes can be seen, such as the portrayal of famous men and women on the labels, with or without their permission, suggesting product endorsement and use."
The reprints in this book (which retails for $39.95) are actually from the John and Carolyn Grossman collection, which is on display at the du Pont estate Winterthur in Brandywine Valley, Delaware.
John Grossman's painstaking work in authoring this volume makes for a pleasant read whether you're flipping through the decades of artwork, or reading it cover to cover, absorbing the history of a printing dynasty and a bygone era's elegant tobaccania.
It might be hard to believe, given today's strict smoking regulations, that cigar advertising was once everywhere. But for those of us who appreciate the artwork as part of the cigar experience, box art from the golden age has been collected in Labeling America: Popular Culture on Cigar Box Labels by John Grossman (Fox Chapel Publishing, 320pp.)
Labeling America is a visual history of label art printed from 1849
1
1971 by three generations of the Schlegel family. George Schlegel Lithographers was one of the premiere American companies producing artwork for cigar boxes of the time, and this volume collects a wide and vivid sample of the artwork they produced.
Grossman applies his expert knowledge in an approachable but informative history of the rise and fall of lithography and how the cigars of yesteryear connected with the artwork.
The book traces the evolution of cigar advertising through trial and error, offering forgiving evaluations of a pioneering industry: "Some of the imagery now seems quaint, naïve, even odd. Yet the beginning of familiar advertising themes can be seen, such as the portrayal of famous men and women on the labels, with or without their permission, suggesting product endorsement and use."
The reprints in this book (which retails for $39.95) are actually from the John and Carolyn Grossman collection, which is on display at the du Pont estate Winterthur in Brandywine Valley, Delaware.
John Grossman's painstaking work in authoring this volume makes for a pleasant read whether you're flipping through the decades of artwork, or reading it cover to cover, absorbing the history of a printing dynasty and a bygone era's elegant tobaccania.
It might be hard to believe, given today's strict smoking regulations, that cigar advertising was once everywhere. But for those of us who appreciate the artwork as part of the cigar experience, box art from the golden age has been collected in Labeling America: Popular Culture on Cigar Box Labels by John Grossman (Fox Chapel Publishing, 320pp.)
Labeling America is a visual history of label art printed from 1849
d
drawing on other
material from John's collection.
~Sometimes lhe Label Was Beller
Than the Cigar" and sometimes
other firms copied Schlegel's most
popular designs,
The final chapter. ~End of
an Era," sadly recounts a 1959
merger gone bad and an industry
diminished (not to mention cigars
falling OIIt of favor).
But. as John says,
now the history
can be written. 1lle
original material
is on display at
the Winterthur
Museum. where
The John and
Carolyn Grossman
Collection is on
loan. And now the
fruilS ofan important
priming industry.
of an influential
iconography. and
of a passionate
collector's research.
can be enjoyed in a
very fine book
John Grossman's new OOok. LnIHling
America, was on my desk
when a four
t
typically printed material such as posters, postcards and greeting cards meant to last only a short time.
Their collection is housed in the Winterthur Museum Library near Wilmington, Del., and contains some 250,000 printed images.
LOOKING AT HISTORY OUTSIDE THE BOX
"A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke."
Rudyard Kipling may have written that line with tongue in cheek back in 1886, but in those days a good cigar was unquestionably a valuable commodity.
Cigars were smoked by cowboys and capitalists, socialites and soldiers, shopkeepers and sodbusters.
The cigar was among the first products to be mass
p
page excerpt from Labeling America
Ran a 4
t
table style book, which presents the laborius collection of American cigar lable artwork collected for decades by the author.
Grossman is a legendary figure in the world of ephemera. His cigar label collection is now on display at The Winterthur Measeum. This book includes over 80 years of delightful printed ephemera that reflects the changing customs, attitudes, and ideals during Victorian and Edwardian life.
The good folks at Fax Chapel Publishing sent me a review copy of Labeling America. I have to say it is a beautiful coffee
