CURRIER de IVES, American lithographers whose prints of events and scenes in the United States of the middle and latter part of the 19th century are much sought after. NATHANIEL CUR RIER (1813-1888) was born in Roxbury, Mass., was apprenticed to a lithographer at 15 and at the age of 22 set up for himself, first at Philadelphia and then in New York. In 1835 a disastrous fire swept lower New York. Four days later Currier produced a lithograph entitled "Ruins of the Merchants' Exchange" which the public bought eagerly. A few years later the steamship "Lexing ton" was burned in Long Island Sound with the loss of roo lives. Within three days Currier had lithographed the burning ship, sup plying a full description of the catastrophe. The success of the lithograph was instant. JAMES MERRITT IVES (1824-1895), an artist, was employed by Currier, at first as a bookkeeper; but later he became a partner. For over a generation Currier & Ives turned out lithographs, which the public eagerly bought, on the events of the day, disasters on land and sea, death beds, Indian and frontier scenes, Biblical scenes, and social caricatures. In the later years of the 19th century the newspapers and the photo graph supplanted lithographs, and the prints were no longer made. Years later they began to be in demand by collectors, and prints that originally sold for a dollar or two each were bought for hundreds or even thousands of dollars.