Return to Epsom Library Home Page........................Return to Epsom Library Special Collections
PRANG'S Civil War Chromo-Lithographs
BATTLE OF KENESAW MOUNTAIN
click image for larger version and battle desciption
click
image for larger version
BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG
click image for larger version and battle desciption
LAYING THE PONTOONS AT FREDERICKSBURG
click
image for larger version and battle desciption
THE PASS AT ALLATOONA
click
image for larger version and battle desciption
SIEGE OF VICKSBURG
click
image for larger version
PRANG,
Louis (1824-1909) was born in Breslau of a French Huguenot father and German
mother, and learned to dye print calico in his father's shop. After traveling
as a journeyman in Europe, he went to the United States in 1850, a refugee of
the revolutionary period. He came well trained as a lithographer and settled
in Boston, where he started as a wood-engraver. He also became a lithographer,
color-printer and publisher. Soon after the Civil War he began printing chromo
lithographs; and during the 1870's he began to issue color reproductions of
famous paintings.
He was a writer on many subjects. He wrote the "Prang Method of Art Instruction" and the "Prang Standards of Color." He is remembered for "Prang's Natural History Series," published in 1873, and "Prang's Aids for Objective Teaching," which appeared in 1877, and both had a marked effect on the teaching of art throughout the United States. In 1882, the pioneer of American lithographing organized the Prang Educational Company to publish drawing books for schools, and Prang's water colors remained standard classroom equipment for many years. Sylvester Koehler, the son of a Leipzig artist, who was brought to the United States as a twelve-year old boy in 1849, became technical manager of Prang and Company in 1868, one of the founders of the American Art Review, and curator of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Related websites: short
biography, or longer
biography with discussion of the color wheel