| Status | Defunct |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1880 |
| Founder | Louis Kurz and Alexander Allison |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Headquarters location | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Distribution | national |
| Publication types | Prints |
Kurz and Allison were a major publisher of chromolithographs in the late 19th century. Based at 267-269 Wabash Avenue in Chicago, they built their reputation on large prints published in the mid-1880s depicting battles of the American Civil War. In all, a set of 36 battle scenes were published from designs by Louis Kurz (1835–1921),[1] himself a veteran of the war. Kurz, a native of Salzburg, Austria, had emigrated to the United States in 1848.[2]
While the prints were highly inaccurate[3] and considered naive fantasies like Currier and Ives prints,[4] they were still sought after. They did not pretend to mirror the actual events but rather attempted to tap people's patriotic emotions. When the Spanish–American War broke out in 1898, the company created several large prints of the major battles and of the subsequent campaign of the Philippine–American War. Later conflicts such as the Russo-Japanese War were also illustrated by the company.
- ^ "Louis Kurz, Famous Artist, Friend of Lincoln Dies". Journal of the Illinois Historical Society. 14 (1/2). University of Illinois Press: 208. 1922. JSTOR 40186836.
- ^ Neely, Mark E; Holzer, Harold (2000). The Union Image: Popular Prints of the Civil War North. The University of North Carolina Press. p. 210. ISBN 0-8078-2510-7. Retrieved December 18, 2009.
- ^ Cannan, John (1997). The Antietam Campaign: August-september 1862. Da Capo Press. pp. 24–27. ISBN 0-938289-91-8.
One wonders if veterans looked at these prints with grim amusement or hateful disgust at the misrepresentation of the way Kurz and Allison portrayed their exploits.
- ^ Neely, Mark E.; Holzer, Harold; Boritt, Gabor S. (1987). The Confederate Image: Prints of the Lost Cause. The University of North Carolina Press. p. 219. ISBN 978-0-8078-4905-7. Retrieved December 18, 2009.
... The ridiculous fantasies of battle art churned out after the war by Chicago's Kurz and Allison.