Woman wearing floral hat, from the Novelties series (N228, Type 2) issued by Kinney Bros. 1889

Editor: Here we have a promotional print from the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company, made around 1889: "Woman wearing floral hat, from the Novelties series." It's a charming, delicate image done with colored pencil and printmaking. It looks very gentle and sweet. What strikes you when you look at it? Curator: I notice the way this small print collapses distinctions. It imitates fine art portraiture via accessible, mass-produced methods. What does it mean to have a portrait, historically a marker of wealth, now available as a tobacco insert? Editor: It seems almost contradictory, like art becoming…disposable? Curator: Exactly. Consider the labor involved – both in the drawing and the industrial printing processes. Are these “artists” in the traditional sense? Or are they workers participating in the machinery of advertising, incentivized by the consumption habits? Editor: So the subject of the art—the woman and her hat—is secondary to how it was made and distributed? Curator: Not secondary, but inseparable. The image promises beauty and sophistication, but the method delivers it through mass culture. We see class aspirations being manufactured. Consider also the materiality. Paper wasn't always cheap, nor was color printing accessible. Its value as ephemera speaks volumes. Editor: So this seemingly simple picture actually tells us a lot about industry and consumption at the time? Curator: Precisely. It’s about interrogating how art is woven into the fabric of everyday life, packaged with products. Editor: I’ll never look at old ads the same way again!