UnsignedAult & Wiborg Printing Inks, c. 1900 Advertising illustration for The Ault & Wiborg Co.
In 1878 the Ault & Wiborg Company was established in Cincinnati, Ohio specializing in manufacturing printing inks, dry color dyes, and pigments. In the mid-19th century English and German chemists began experimenting with creating colorants derived from coal-tar chemicals. So successful was this company in the use of coal-tar dyes to produce bright colored inks that beginning in the 1890s they began to place full page color ads in the print trade magazine, The Inland Printer and in other trade periodicals like The Engraver and Printer, and The American Printer. Not only were these ads typically designed by leading illustrators, the impressive images were made to showcase the firm’s range of colored inks. By the turn of the 20th century Ault & Wiborg was one of the world’s largest ink suppliers with offices also in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Buffalo, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Toronto, Havana, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, London, and Yokohama.* (more…)
