Portrait of woman, from the Novelties series (N228, Type 1) issued by Kinney Bros. 1889

This portrait of a woman was produced by the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company as part of their Novelties series. It's a tiny chromolithograph, printed on paper. What's interesting about this image is its origin. Not made by a trained artist, but churned out by a corporation as a giveaway item with their cigarettes. The dot-matrix printing is so fine that it almost disappears. This gives the image a soft, idealized quality. Consider the labor involved in producing these images on an industrial scale. The making of this portrait is connected to mass production and consumption. It raises questions about who is creating and controlling images in our society, and what purposes they serve. It really makes you think about the whole notion of "art" and how we value different kinds of making.