Boxing, from the Pretty Athletes series (N196) issued by Wm. S. Kimball & Co. 1889

This small card, “Boxing, from the Pretty Athletes series,” was produced by the Wm. S. Kimball & Co., likely as a collectible included in cigarette packs. As with other chromolithographs, its creation hinged on the industrialization of printing. Note the somewhat unnaturalistic colors – a pink sash, blue tights – which are achieved by layering multiple colors one after another. The image would have begun as a set of separate drawings, each corresponding to a different color, transferred to lithographic stones. The final print is the result of a division of labor between the artist who designed the image, the artisans who prepared the stones, and the factory workers who ran the printing presses. Small cards like this were immensely popular in the late 19th century, reflecting the growing consumer culture. The ‘pretty athlete’ is here reduced to a standardized image, an early example of how art became entangled with mass production and popular entertainment.