Reproductions of BIRD’S EYE VIEWS LITHOGRAPHS OF
PAWTUXET VALLEY 1889
We have acquired, and have available for sale, reproductions of lithographs produced in 1889,
By John Reps, of the following villages of the Pawtuxet Valley:
Average size of each lithograph is 20” x 25”
Print has antique characteristics – High resolution – Packaged in a tube.
Available at Pawtuxet Valley Preservation & Historical Society or call (401) 821-1078
Price is $35.00 per lithograph plus $5.00 domestic shipping.
Prints can be seen and are available at P.V.P.H.S.
These lithographs are now hanging in the Council Chamber at the West Warwick Town Hall.
HISTORY OF URBAN LITHOGRAPHS:
As early as the 1820’s American artists turned to drawing urban lithographs as a means of supplementing their meager incomes by producing portraits, painting landscapes, or teaching art. Land speculators, town site promoters, and civic leaders used these urban views in the hope of attracting people and industry to their communities and often subsidized them to make wider distribution possible.
By recording hundreds of hamlets and towns with their lithographs the artists helped to Americanize and assimilate large numbers of foreign-born immigrants at a time when the level of education was not high. Many of the new residents had difficulty with English and used them to help identify their surroundings.
By the late 1800’s the art began to fade as town and cities changed so rapidly that a view drawn by an itinerant artist would be out-of-date by the time it was printed.
Recently scholars have rediscovered them as useful tools for research in the history of architecture, city planning, transportation, urban geography, and other fields.
Historical societies, museums, and libraries now vie with one another and with a hoard of private collectors in bidding for city views at auctions or buying them at shops of print dealers.