The new Lifephotostore.com allows you to order prints of photos by Alfred Eisenstaedt, Nina Leen and the rest of LIFE’s great photographers. The shop is a collaboration between LIFE and Pixels.com, a leader in print-on-demand artworks. Alex Young, the company’s vice president of operations and business development, says that matching their expertise with LIFE’s vaunted collection fulfills a longtime goal.

“Since 2006, we’ve been in business to help artists, photographers, and content owners monetize their images across custom wall decor and merchandise,” Young says. “In addition to our community of 700,000 artists and photographers, we’ve been building out a roster of some of the most popular licensed content companies in the world including Getty, Sports Illustrated, TIME magazine, MLB, and the NBA. LIFE’s iconic imagery has long been on our wish list.”

The pride of the company is its technology and the quality of its reproductions. “`Print-on-Demand’ is often thought of as producing novelty items like pillows or shot glasses where the focus isn’t necessarily on accurately reproducing the color and contrast of the original image,” Young says. “With the best-in-class wall decor we produce out of more than a dozen locations around the world, each piece is custom-built to fit the uncropped version of the original image and printed with archival inks on fine art papers and substrates.”  

The LIFE store features a curated collection of 10,000 photos, the most popular and beloved from among of the millions of images in LIFE’s vast archive. The images presented here are the ten most popular LIFE photos with print-on-demand customers. This top ten includes celebrities from Marilyn Monroe to Eddie Murphy, and also scenes of high fashion and of barnyard hijinks. It’s just a hint at the great variety of photographic treasures that you can have custom-printed.

Most customers print the photos as wall art, with options ranging from posters to canvas prints and more. The store also allows you to print LIFE’s photos on coffee mugs, throw pillows, and a long list of home products.

LIFE’s pictures have amazed and inspired viewers for generations. Take a look around the store and see which photos you can have printed for your home, so they can amaze and inspire you every day.

Models wearing latest dress designs from Christian Dior, 1957.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Portrait of actress Marilyn Monroe on patio of her home.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Steve McQueen aims a pistol in his living room.

Photo by Loomis Dean/The LIFE Picture Collection/Meredith Corporation

Comedians Rodney Dangerfield and Redd Foxx, 1982.

David Mcgough/Life Picture Colletion/Shutterstock

Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer, Princeton University, 1947.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Comedian Eddie Murphy (left) and singer Rick James following Murphy’s performance at Madison Square Garden, 1986.

David Mcgough/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren laughing while exchanging jokes during lunch break on a movie set, 1961.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mickey Mantle, Yankee Stadium, 1965.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Fresh milk at Arch Badertscher’s dairy farm. 1954.

Nat Farbman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jack Nicholson relaxing at home in Los Angeles, 1969.

Arthur Schatz/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The post Have LIFE’s Classic Photos in Your Home appeared first on LIFE.

It sounds like a fanciful idea, perhaps a premise for a children’s book. But in Sacramento in the 1950s, there was a place where kids could actually check out animals and take them home.

The service was run out of the California Junior Museum, which was located on the state fairgrounds. The museum had exhibits which taught young people about the natural world (this quaint film strip documents a field trip there), and one if its programs was a lending library for living creatures. LIFE photographer Carl Mydans, whose portfolio includes many brutal scenes of war, was there to document the cuteness.

Here’s how the library worked, according to the story in the July 14, 1952 issue of LIFE:

Children who visit the California Junior Museum can, if they are at least seven years old and have their parents’ permission, take home rats, rabbits, squirrels, or in special cases, a skunk or a porcupine. Designed to give children first-hand information about U.S. wildlife, the lending library has 40 animals which circulate about the rate of 20 a week….animals may be kept out for a week, and there is a ten-cent fine for overdue animals.

And yes, you read correctly: that list of animals available for borrowing did include a rat. The closing anecdote of the LIFE story was actually about a white rat who had been kept out past her due date:

One boy did keep a white rat past the limit, but he was excused from the fine. At the time that the rat was due back it was in the boy’s living room—busily giving birth to a litter of eight in the pop-eyed presence of every child in the neighborhood.

Sounds like quite the education.

Animal lending library In Sacramento, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Animal Lending Library In Sacramento, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Animal borrowers clustered around the librarian who checked applications and parents’ permission slips for lending pets, Sacramento, California, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Animal lending library In Sacramento, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

From a story on an animal lending library in Sacramento, 1952.

Carl Mydans/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock

From a story on an animal lending library In Sacramento, 1952.

Carl Mydans/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Youngsters on their way home from an animal lending library in Sacramento, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

From a story on an animal lending library in Sacramento, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

From a story on an animal lending library in Sacramento, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dirk Schwartz fed Pogie the porcupine with an ear of corn, shot for a story on a California animal lending library, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The animal lending library lent this rabbit to a kindergarten class, Sacramento, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A little boy holding his new pet snake.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A youngster with the white rat he borrowed from the animal lending library in Sacramento, California, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Skunks like this one were available for checkout from the animal lending library in Sacramento, California, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Derek Leigh checked out this skunk from the animal lending library; the skunk had its glands removed to avoid the spray of odor, Sacramento, California, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Seriously, Check Out This Porcupine: A Lending Library for Animals appeared first on LIFE.

Christo in front of his environmental installation “Corridor Store Front.”

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

To commemorate Christo is to ponder an eccentric designer of architectural clothing. His projects with Jeanne-Claude, called wrappings, masterfully dressed buildings and monuments in an act that was both a makeover and a demolition. Although his most recent works made use of colored barrels, curtains, archways, and island extensions, his most iconic pieces deployed vast swaths of sheeting made from plastics and fabrics. The sheets, held up by miles of thick, prickly-strung rope, billowed in cascades and met at the cinches.

In 1968 LIFE staffer Carlo Bavagnoli captured Christo gracefully constructing his first large-scale wrapping project, and Bavagnoli also shot two other installations by Christo and Jeanne-Claude that same year. These photos capture Christo’s skill at highlighting both the physical and bureaucratic structures that surround public architecture.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s wrappings challenged the visual presence of public architecture by, as Art News put it in their tribute to the late artist, “deconstructing and reconstructing the way we think about those structures.” In effect, their sheets covered fine architectural details but highlighted building structure. Sharp juts of corners and smooth curves of domes became accentuated, while a new void of color and texture called on viewers’ memories to fill in the details of a building that was simultaneously on display but held hostage.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude bunched up plastic sheeting while constructing “5,600 Cubic Meter Package,” for Documenta IV in 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

    The artwork was more than the finished product. Every step and challenge of a wrapping constituted the piece. Christo and Jeanne-Claude pushed back against the wills of city officials, insurers, and engineers to gain permissions. Exploring the restraints of these civil systems was part of the work. In 1972 Christo told the New York Times:

“For me esthetics is everything involved in the process – the workers, the politics, the negotiations, the construction difficulty, the dealings with hundreds of people… The whole process becomes an esthetic – that’s what I’m interested in, discovering the process. I put myself in dialogue with other people.”

  That process prevented the two from seeing through large-scale wrappings early in their careers. But in 1968, the Kunsthalle in Bern, Switzerland, became the site for their first large-scale wrapping. Wrapped Kunsthalle pushed their nearly decade-old proposals into reality, at last at their imagined scale.

The museum was a running start. During 1968, Christo and Jeanne-Claude embarked on five major projects that involved over 50,000 square feet of sheeting, and over 4 miles of rope. Bavagnoli shot three of these installations.

Wrapped Kunsthalle: Bern, Switzerland

Wrapped Kunsthalle was part of an international group show for the Kunsthalle museum’s 50^th anniversary. A dozen artists participated, by presenting a variety of environmental works. Instead of showing something inside the halls, Christo and Jeanne-Claude cloaked the museum in 26,156 square feet of reinforced polyethylene. Christo said of the exhibition, “We took the environments by eleven other artists and wrapped them. We had our whole environment inside.”

Christo stood on top of the Swiss art museum, Kunsthalle, fastening rope and plastic sheeting around a pillar for his installation “Wrapped Kunsthalle,” 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Christo sidled over plastic on the roof of the Kunsthalle Swiss art museum so he could fasten rope for his installation, “Wrapped Kunsthalle,” 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Christo adjusted plastic sheeting on the Swiss art museum, Kunsthalle, as spectators walk by. The covering was part of his installation “Wrapped Kunsthalle,” 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Christo slid over plastic on the roof of the Swiss art museum, Kunsthalle, for his installation “Wrapped Kunsthalle,” 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Christo sat on a monument across the street from the Swiss art museum, Kunsthalle, so he could observe his installation work on “Wrapped Kunsthalle,” 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Christo, on the roof of the Kunsthalle Swiss art museum, adjusted rope for his “Wrapped Kunsthalle,”1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Visitors moved through a slit of plastic sheeting from Christo’s “Wrapped Kunsthalle” to enter the Kunsthalle Swiss art museum. The museum was covered all but for one opening for visitors to move in and out, 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

It took six days to wrap the museum, with help from an 11-person team. It was both an installation feat, and a bureaucratic one. Insurance companies refused to protect the museum while it was wrapped. In lieu of insurance, six security guards were hired to stand watch for potential fire and vandalism. The measure was so costly that the building was unwrapped after a week.

A panorama view of Christo’s “Wrapped Kunsthalle,” the Swiss art museum covered in plastic sheeting for an art show celebrating the museum’s 50th anniversary in 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Wrapped Fountain and Wrapped Medieval Tower: Spoleto, Italy 

A fountain and building facade at the center of town in Spoleto, Italy, was wrapped for the “Festival of Two Worlds,” 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

In July 1968, while Christo was working on Wrapped Kunsthalle, Jeanne-Claude was in the town of Spoleto, Italy. The two had proposed wrapping the Spoleto Opera House for the Festival of Two Worlds, but they were denied due to fire laws. Instead, they wrapped a medieval tower landmark and a baroque fountain at the Spoleto marketplace.

With Christo in Bern and Jeanne-Claude in Spoleto, neither was able to see the other’s completed wrapping. But later in the summer, the two reunited and completed 5,600 Cubic Meter Package.

A medieval tower on the outskirts of Spoleto, Italy was wrapped for the “Festival of Two Worlds,” 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

A fountain and building facade at the center of town in Spoleto, Italy was wrapped for the “Festival of Two Worlds,” 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

5,600 Cubic Meter Package: Kassel, Germany

Christo stood in front of his installation “5,600 Cubic Meter Package” while it was being inflated. The installation was part of Documenta IV in 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed 5,600 Cubic Meter Package as part of the contemporary art exhibition, Documenta IV in 1968. The installation was the largest ever inflated structure without a skeleton.

Its construction involved the two tallest cranes Europe had to offer, plus professional riggers, heat sealed fabric and a 3.5-ton steel cradle as a support base. Christo and Jeanne-Claude had a chief engineer, Dimiter Zagoroff, who created the base and helped coordinate the package’s inflation. The result was a striking display of collaboration and engineering work, the sort of which would continue through the rest of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s lifetime of installation.

Christo and his head engineer, Dimiter Zagoroff, discussed the construction of the metal support base for “5,600 Cubic Meter Package,” 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Christo in front of a light illuminating night-time construction of the metal support base for “5,600 Cubic Meter Package,” 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Christo with his hand on plastic while observing the inflation of “5,600 Cubic Meter Package,” 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Christo watched while members of his team pulled plastic sheeting through the top of a rope casing for “5,600 Cubic Meter Package,” 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Christo laying out on the roll of plastic sheeting for “5,600 Cubic Meter Package,” his installation at Documenta IV in 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Christo worked with a construction team member to roll plastic sheeting so it could be slid into rope casing for “5,600 Cubic Meter Package,” 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude shared a kiss during the installation of “5,600 Cubic Meter Package,” at Documenta IV in 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude discussed with their head engineer, Dimiter Zagoroff, the details of construction for “5,600 Cubic Meter Package,” during Documenta IV in 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Christo, Jeanne-Claude, and other members of the construction team, fastened the inflation tube around the metal base of “5,600 Cubic Meter Package,” for Documenta IV in 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Christo propped up a section of plastic sheeting during the inflation of “5,600 Cubic Meter Package,” for Documenta IV in 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

The son of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Cyril Christo, read a book during the construction work on “5,600 Cubic Meter Package,” for Documenta IV in Germany, 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Christo peered up at plastic sheeting during the inflation of “5,600 Cubic Meter Package,” for Documenta IV in 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Christo used a machine to heat a section of plastic used to seal up “5,600 Cubic Meter Package,” for inflation. The installation was part of Documenta IV in 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

“5,600 Cubic Meter Package,” partially inflated during Documenta IV in 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Christo worked with his construction team to slide a large roll of plastic into rope casing of his “5,600 Cubic Meter Package,” for Documenta IV in 1968.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

Details on each installation were compiled using Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s “Realized Projects” summaries on their portfolio website. 

The post Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s First Wrappings, 1968 appeared first on LIFE.