Gift To Provide Permanent Home For
Collection And Ensure Greater Public Access
ConAgra Foods, Inc. (NYSE:CAG) 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.
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Currier & Ives: Central Park in
Winter (Photo: Business Wire).
“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.”
About ConAgra Foods
ConAgra Foods, Inc., (NYSE: CAG), is one of North America's
leading packaged food companies with recognized brands such as
Marie Callender's®, Healthy Choice®, Slim Jim®, Hebrew National®,
Orville Redenbacher's®, Peter Pan®, Reddi-wip®, PAM®, Snack Pack®,
Banquet®, Chef Boyardee®, Egg Beaters®, Hunt’s® and many other
ConAgra Foods brands found in grocery, convenience, mass
merchandise and club stores. ConAgra Foods also has a strong
business-to-business presence, supplying frozen potato and sweet
potato products as well as other vegetable, spice and grain
products to a variety of well-known restaurants, foodservice
operators and commercial customers. For more information, please
visit us at www.conagrafoods.com.
About Joslyn Art Museum
Joslyn Art Museum showcases art from ancient times to the
present. The Museum was a gift to the people of Omaha from Sarah
Joslyn in memory of her husband, George, who made his fortune as
president of the Western Newspaper Union. The Museum’s original
1931 building is one of the finest examples of Art Deco
architecture in the nation, with 38 types of marble from seven
countries. The Walter and Suzanne Scott Pavilion, a
58,000-square-foot addition built in 1994, was designed by renowned
British architect Norman Foster as his first U.S. commission. The
Museum features galleries, a 1,000–seat concert hall, fountain
court, education technology gallery, lecture hall, classrooms,
sculpture garden, café, shop, and Art Works, an interactive space
for art exploration.
About Currier & Ives
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.
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ConAgra Foods, Inc.Chris Kircher,
402-240-5392Chris.kircher@conagrafoods.comwww.conagrafoods.com
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