Prints being relatively cheap to produce, Lewenthal decided to focus on that medium. Before the 1930s, fine-art prints were usually limited editions which sold for $10–$50. During the Great Depression the Federal Art Project had resulted in hundreds of thousands of prints, but these were distributed free (mostly to schools) thus the artists made no profits from print sales. Lewenthal's idea was to combine quality, affordability, and profit. In 1934 he met with several well-known American artists, including Thomas Hart Benton, and proposed hiring them to produce lithographs which he would then sell to middle-class buyers for $5 apiece plus $2 per frame, paying the artist $200 per edition. At the same time, corporations began hiring famous artists to work on advertising campaigns – Dole Pineapple, for example, hired artist Georgia O'Keeffe to "create pictorial links between pineapple juice and tropical romance". This convergence of art, business, and consumerism was the perfect environment for Lewenthal's new Associated American Artists enterprise.