The University of Kansas
Spencer Museum of Art
Print Room: Image Maps of Printmaking Techniques
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The Great Salt Lake of Utah, 1874
Chromolithograph, 250 mm x 363 mm
Gift of Steven Schmidt, Class of 1958, 1994.0015
View full record What to Look for: A chromolithograph is a color lithograph in which each of many colors is printed by a separate stone. The term "chromolithograph" is usually reserved for complex color lithographs that reproduce a painting, such as this example that attempts to capture the subtleties of Thomas Moran's painting of the Great Salt Lake of Utah. Chromolithographs usually make use of many (dozens) of lithographic stone each of which prints one color. Properly registering so many stones, so they are precisely aligned one atop the other, is a technical feat in itself. This chromolithograph was produced by Louis Prang, the most important "chromo" publisher in the Unites States. For good examples of the emulation of oil painting through the layering of colors from numerous lithographic stones look at the rock formations in the foreground or the backlit cloud formation to the right of center in the sky.
