LABELS - BEAUTIFUL DESIGNS FOR GINGER ALE, LIME RICKEY AND ALL BEVERAGES - LEHMANN PRINTING AND LITHOGRAPHING CO., 400-430 Fourth St., SAN FRANCISCO.

Vintage San Francisco Printing Company Catalog containing 116 PAGES of COLOR CHROMOLITHOGRAPH BEVERAGE LABEL DESIGNS printed on rectos only (i.e. blank backsides). The many designs for Ginger Ale and Lime Rickey are gorgeous and unlike any I have ever seen. Each plate is suitable for framing, imho.

SAN FRANCISCO: Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co., 1936.

Softcovers, side stapled with black cloth covered spine, 6.5x10.5 inches, 119 leaves (pages numbered on the printed side only).

Did I mention there are 116 pages of chromolithographic label designs for beverages? Most pages have two chromolithographic label designs.

VERY GOOD Condition: the covers have some creases, edge wear, and signs of handling, but are solid and bright; internally, the first few pages of text have some light edge wear, a few of the label pages have a corner crease unaffecting the images, ONE PAGE, page 92, WAS NEATLY CUT IN HALF REMOVING ONE OF THE TWO IMAGES ON THAT PAGE, otherwise ALL pages are present and ALL the LITHOGRAPHS are SHIMMERING with GOLD & SILVER BRILLIANCE. A Lovely and Presentable copy.

About LEHMANN PRINTING and LITHOGRAPHING CO. of SAN FRANCISCO (from the CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY website):

******Exhibition of Labels December 10, 2016 - April 23, 2017. This exhibition explores the California Historical Society's exquisite collection of vintage beverage labels produced by the now-forgotten LEHMANN PRINTING and LITHOGRAPHING COMPANY of SAN FRANCISCO. Designed during the terrible privation and unrest of the Great Depression, Lehmann's labels graced hundreds of thousands of bottles of mass manufactured beverages, invoking deliciously unrealistic fantasies of peace, plenty, and the high-class life. Marrying design with consumer ideology, the Lehmann oeuvre represents a forgotten high point of American commercial art.

Founded in 1911 by Adolph Lehmann with an initial investment of $190, the firm expanded into a major industrial printing operation by 1935. One journalist called Lehmann "the printer who hasn't heard about the depression." The company employed one hundred people, including a permanent staff of anonymous artists who designed each custom label with skillful care. To meet an ever increasing demand for labels, Lehmann also pioneered a stock label service in the mid-1930s, creating catalogs of generic labels with stock vignettes that could be applied to a wide variety of products.

The Lehmann art department flourished in the fast pace of mass production, finding in their daily grind opportunities for seemingly inexhaustible creative invention. Their visual vocabulary included certain recurring motifs - parted curtains, heavy vines, and peaceful fields - and surprisingly effective combinations of Art Deco design with romanticized references to the Middle Ages, the Mission Era, and the Gold Rush. The labels mythologized both California's past and present, illustrating a vision of social and industrial harmony from which the bitter realities of history were excluded.

The exhibition features hundreds of colorfully illustrated labels, ephemera, and label catalog books from Lehmann Printing.******