BIEN THERE, DONE THAT...Happy New Year!

I may or may not have posted this card in the past. I'll chalk it up to senior moments. And frankly, I can think of other things to do than go back through old posts to find it because seriously, it's worth posting again.

It's a lovely card printed by Julius Bien & Company in 1908 in New York. Mr. Bien died a year later in 1909. How nice that this card has survived so many New Year's.




Click on images to see them larger.

The following is from the MetroPostcard site in New York, always a great source of postcard information.

Bien, whose father had been a lithographer, studied graphic arts at the Academy in Kassel, Germany. He left for the United States after the failed revolution of 1848, and opened his own lithography shop in New York. Between 1854 and 1856 he went into a brief partnership with Julius Sterner. He first achieved acclaim for his lithographic transfers of James Audubon’s engravings from Birds in America. Afterwards he concentrated on printing maps, setting new standards for their production. By the 1880’s the firm expanded into printing a wide range of chromolithographic material including advertising, posters, and trade cards. This would latter further expand into sets of comic, holiday, patriotic, religious, and sentimental postcards, typified by a highly graphic style. Bien died in 1909 but the firm continued its printing operations until purchased by the Heywood, Strasser & Voigt Litho Company in 1915. Julius Bien also served as the first president of the National Lithographer’s Association. (SOURCE: MetroPostcard Publishers)