Bringing history to life

INSIDE JOB: Archives and Ephemera Design specializes in work that combines photos, prints, paintings and vintage advertising that can add up to 250-350 pieces. Pictured above, from left, are: employees Cindy Bean, Andy Morris, Karen Cafaro and owner Rena Nathanson. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
INSIDE JOB: Archives and Ephemera Design specializes in work that combines photos, prints, paintings and vintage advertising that can add up to 250-350 pieces. Pictured above, from left, are: employees Cindy Bean, Andy Morris, Karen Cafaro and owner Rena Nathanson. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

Framed artwork adorning the walls at Carmine’s Restaurant in New York City represents the kind of work Archives and Ephemera Design specializes in: collages of memorabilia with staying power.

Carmine’s was one of the first bigger jobs the Providence company completed in the early 1990s at first the Broadway and then the theater-district location, recalled CEO Rena Nathanson.

The firm’s biggest projects combine photos, prints, paintings and vintage advertising that can add up to 250-350 pieces, she says.

The decorated walls at the New York City Italian restaurant are “cluttered, in the nicest possible way,” Nathanson said. “I was there last year and it hasn’t changed.”

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Rena Nathanson is the daughter of Abe Nathanson, who passed away in 2010 and left the business to her. A lifelong collector of “anything artistic,” and inventor of the word game, “Bananagrams,” Abe Nathanson collaborated professionally with his daughter, who lives in London but got involved in the business about 10 years ago, she said.

Rena Nathanson was about to launch a branch of the company in the United Kingdom around 2004-05 when “Bananagrams” became a hit and took most of her energy. (Now, she is “top banana – CEO and president” of that company, she said.)

Nathanson also runs Archives and Ephemera Design, working closely both remotely and when she’s in the U.S. with three employees and a part-time worker.

Like her father, Nathanson combs flea markets, auctions and antiques shops looking for collectible photos, art, film posters, postcards and other vintage material that “captures the essence of history.” She and her employees archive the hard copies and store items digitally as well, all while putting together projects that could range from a single photograph to the hundreds of items found on Carmine’s walls, she said.

The owners of the restaurant Papa Razzi, with locations in Cranston, Boston and other Massachusetts towns, wanted to create “a certain atmosphere with pop stars and shots paparazzi would take,” so, Nathanson’s firm answered the call, she said.

“We had to source lots of images, photographs and memorabilia, size them, print, frame and install them,” she said. “We’re a one-stop shop, but [the portfolios] are tailored, not off the shelf – [comprised of] images you’re not going to see anywhere else.”

Artifacts collected over 55 years are used for clients all over the country and in Europe – clients that include not only restaurants but also bank or hotel lobbies or businesses with “any public space,” Nathanson said.

The firm does consultations, archival printing, custom framing, graphic design, artistic collaborations and archival research, she said.

Because Abe Nathanson had his collection organized “in his head,” a big challenge was organizing it after he died, Rena Nathanson added.

“Now, we’ve got a handle on it,” she said. “It could take another 50 years to archive everything, because it’s all hard copy. We’re continually archiving digitally.” •

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