APHA Newsletter · Winter ·
Drucker Delivers Newsletter Lieberman Lecture Number
ON SEPTEMBER , Johanna Drucker, Robertson Winter Professor of Media Studies at the University of Vir- ginia, art historian and book artist, delivered the Lieberman Lecture in the Carmichael Auditorium of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. Welcoming the approximately eighty attendees, thanking the organizers and introducing the speaker APHA Annual Meeting Set were Mark Samuels Lasner, APHA Vice-President for Programs, and Nancy Gwinn, Director of the Smith- Saturday, January , at pm in the Trustees sonian Libraries. Drucker’s lecture, entitled ‘Iliazd: e Room of the New York Public Library, th Avenue Poet-Publisher and the Art of the Book,’ was an over- and nd Street. view of the artistic career of Ilia Zdanevich (-), Officers will report onAPHA activities and the Annual and touched upon the subjects of the visual representa- Awards will be presented. e institutional award will tions of language and the history of experimental poetry be presented to the Plantin-Moretus Museum; the indi- from the Russian Futurist movement at the beginning vidual award will be presented posthumously to Hugh of the past century. Amory (see related tribute in this issue). Drucker explored the work of the Georgian-born Following the APHA reception, all are invited to the poet, printer and publisher, beginning and ending the Bibliography Week Farewell Tea, held at the Grolier talk with images from Iliazd’s Pirosmanachvili of , to Club at East th Street. illustrate her vision of the artist: how each of his roughly three dozen works displayed the artist’s own personal- ity and his technical virtuosity, despite the collaborative · th Annual Conference Report · nature of bookmaking. A poet and artist with a print- er’s training, Zdanevich found that the book format was O – , the only means to convey his intellectual and aesthetic interests. e name of his imprint, degrees, derived Transatlantic Type: Anglo-American from the latitude containing what the artist considered Printing in the Nineteenth Century to be the major cities of creativity in Europe and also the temperature at which delirium occurs in a body. F, O e frontispiece of Pirosmanachvili, a portrait of Iliazd’s ALL THE MOST attractive aspects of Fall – pleasant fellow Georgian artist Pirosmani, is by Picasso, who weather, picture-perfect trees – awaited the intrepid was a life-long friend and contributor to his produc- conferees who met, despite the vexing efforts of the tions. Other collaborators included such contemporary travel gods, in St. Louis. More than conference at- art figures as Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miro and Max tendees and friends of the Washington University Li- Ernst. braries attended the conference’s keynote address. Drucker first encountered Zdanevich’s work in while doing research in the Bibliothèque Jacques Doucet Marianne Tidcombe in Paris. ere she viewed Iliazd’s (a contracted form he ‘Cobden-Sanderson and America’ Ms. Tidcombe, a bookbinding historian, became inter- continued on page ested in T. J. Cobden-Sanderson after reading his mys- tical ‘Cosmic Views.’ She noted that very little had been written about him: just a book by Norman Strouse
online: www.printinghistory.org continued on page APHA Newsletter · Winter ·
Lieberman Lecture Report continued from page Press, demonstrated letterpress printing on a Washing- ton Press of about . e Walczaks had set wood began using in the late s) seminal work Poesie de type of President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural exhorta- Mots Inconnus (), a volume Drucker came to real- tion with a wood block containing an image of a fire- ize was an inauguration of what she called his ‘mature man’s hat, which was created specially for this occasion phase.’ At that time in Paris, Drucker established a by Chris Manson of Rockville, Maryland. e posters working relationship with Iliazd’s widow, Helene Zda- they printed were handed out to those watching. Our nevich, maintainer of the artist’s memory, reputation thanks go to Nelson, who organized the hand press and archives. demonstration as well as the printing of the formal invi- While Iliazd’s work does not rest in total obscurity, tations to the lecture. Drucker believes that it should be better known. She Julia Blakely concluded that the artist occupied a position in the visual arts between the publisher and the book artist. His knowledge and deep im- mersion in typography, material, writing and illustration processes of his livres d’artistes come together in a single, consistent vision. Drucker intends one day to write a full- fledged biography of Iliazd. e Lieberman Memorial Lecture is named for J. Ben Lieberman (–), who was APHA’s founder and first Presi- dent. is event was co-sponsored by APHA; the Smithsonian Institution Libraries; the Center for the Book in the Library of Con- gress; and the Graphics Arts Collection of the Division of Information, Technology and Society, National Museum of American History, Behring Center. Preceding the lecture, Stan Nelson of the Smithsonian Institution provided demon- strations and freewheeling discussions in the recreated mid-nineteenth- century type- founding shop in the Museum’s Hall of Printing and Graphic Arts. For more than two hours, he filed and polished letter punches and matrices and cast type while conversing with shifting groups of APHA members. Nelson showed his latest home- made type mold, which he based on Eng- lish examples (particularly one he studied in Oxford) and has devoted hours of milling and filing to fine-tune. Other topics covered were ladles for pouring the molten metal and the various eighteenth- and nineteenth-cen- tury presses surrounding the workshop. T L , Concurrently, volunteers Franziska and W Jim Walczak, proprietors of the Sycamore C M APHA Newsletter · Winter ·
Conference report continued from page e American part of the Cobden-Sanderson story was the eleven weeks the couple spent touring and and John Dreyfus and a Typophile chapbook on lecturing in the United States in . Mr. Cobden- the Kelmscott, Ashendene and Doves presses. Sanderson lectured on the ‘Book Beautiful’, a phrase he In early , Cobden-Sanderson fell in with the coined in . Mrs. Cobden-Sanderson was much in Burne-Jones and William Morris group. It was Janie demand as a speaker on women’s suffrage, having been Morris who suggested that he study bookbinding. He prominent in the movement in England. Jeffrey Barr was relieved somewhat from having to be concerned with finances as his wife Annie, the daughter of the AFTER THE LECTURE, we attended the exhibition open- prominent politician Richard Cobden, had a small but ing for ‘ e Triple Crown Abroad: e Kelmscott, adequate income. e Doves bindery operated from Doves, and Ashendene Presses beyond the British Isles,’ until . showcasing Charles Gould’s extraordinary collection of e Doves Press began operation in , and closed the three presses recently acquired by Washington Uni- in . e Doves type, which more closely resembled versity. e exhibit, curated by Erin Davis, included Jenson’s design than the Kelmscott Golden type, was some of the books, proofs, drafts, ephemera and cor- first used in . Emery Walker kept the type used to respondence from the collection, and considered the print his Christmas card; found after his death, it reception and influence of the presses in the United is the only part of the Doves font to survive. States. In what was only one small demonstration of Edward Johnston was a creative master of lettering their generosity as hosts, the University gave copies of whose initials contributed much to the look of Doves the color exhibition catalog to the attendees. Press imprints, including the wonderful initial ‘I’ of the Book of Genesis in the Doves Press Bible. Cobden- S, O Sanderson and Johnston were superb collaborators, al- Anne Posega, Head of Special Collections at Washing- though Johnston was very slow, and required much ton University, greeted the attendees, thanking APHA prodding by Cobden-Sanderson to complete projects. and Mark Samuels Lasner, our Vice-President for Pro- He also could be extremely florid, and Cobden-Sander- grams, as well as Washington University’s Erin Davis, son would gently encourage him to use restraint. Joy Lowery, Ken Botnick, and the Special Collections APHA Newsletter · Winter · · New Members · Carleton College Professor Tamara Goeglein John Lie Malcolm L. Phelps Northfield, MN Lancaster, PA Cambridge, MA Winchester, NH Karen Cook John Neal Hoover Sarah McNett Clarence Wolfshohl Lawrence, KS St. Louis, MO Houston, TX Fulton, MO John Deady Cree LeFavour Robert Mullen Richard Zauft Barrington, IL Garrison, NY Webster Groves, MO Shorewood, WI staff for making the conference possible. amples, some of them well known and requiring only Mark Samuels Lasner took the podium and ac- brief review, and others that were less well known even knowledged our Washington University hosts. He also to his knowledgeable audience. Belanger’s paper served thanked John Hoover, director of the Mercantile Li- as an excellent and engaging introduction to the rest of brary, our Sunday venue, and Kay Michael Kramer, the papers of the day. William Stoneman whose Printery was the subject of an exhibit at the Mer- cantile, and who helped to advertise the conference. Ron Tyler ‘Production of the Great Work: Terry Belanger John James Audubon, the Havells, ‘Westward the Course of Books Takes Its Way’ and e Birds of America’ e conference hosts and organizers, and all those in Ron Tyler, Director of the Texas State Historical As- the audience, were grateful to Terry Belanger of the sociation and Professor of History at the University of University of Virginia for agreeing to speak at the con- Texas at Austin, showed how Audubon’s talent, tradi- ference on very limited notice as substitute for Michael tional techniques and practices combined with some Twyman of the University of Reading, who was unable good luck to produce e Birds of America. Before to attend. Twyman’s topic was to have been ‘Transat- Audubon, printed depictions of American wildlife were lantic Cross Currents’ and Belanger certainly covered a static. Audubon created dynamic images of American number of them in his paper. Belanger’s contribution to birds by depicting them at life size and in characteristic the theme of the conference ‘Transatlantic Type’ was to poses within realistic landscapes. e color might have suggest the many ways in which American collectors, looked exotic to his contemporaries, but it was accurate. both private and institutional, influenced the market for Audubon’s innovations relied upon traditional prac- nineteenth-century Anglo-American printing. tices such as an artist’s grid for perspective, and the For the purposes of his paper Belanger essentially studio system (employing talented assistants) for back- took Carl L. Cannon’s ‘Golden Age’ of American book grounds and foliage. Audubon created dynamic repre- collecting, defined as ‘the period extending from the late sentations of his birds by observing them carefully for eighties to the World War’, and divided it into two parts. days or weeks before killing and mounting them on a He demonstrated how in the first part England’s Set- wire grid for painting. Tyler argued that Audubon con- tled Lands Act of did so much to allow the sales ceived of the prints as the final product, not the paint- that made the golden age possible. Belanger remarked ings that are so frequently exhibited today. on the essentially Anglophilic nature of private collect- Key to the success of e Birds and his later e ing and the importance of the bookseller Bernard Quar- Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America were Audu- itch as a large number of books moved from England bon’s printing partners. Tyler recounted how the Lizars to America. It is also indicative that the Grolier Club of of Edinburgh were unable to complete the first set of New York was founded in . Belanger demonstrated prints due to a strike, but by chance Audubon met how in the second part of the period these books grad- Robert Havell Sr. and Jr. of London, who agreed to ually moved from private to institutional American li- complete the project. is accidental meeting uncov- braries. He commented on the importance of changes ered the engraving skills of Havell Jr., and resulted in in the American Income Tax Laws of and the role Audubon’s magnificent double-elephant Birds of Amer- of A. S. W. Rosenbach during this period. ica, produced from -. Belanger’s thesis was fleshed out by a number of ex- A consummate marketer, Audubon had the Birds APHA Newsletter · Winter · printed in America, this time lithographically, to pre- but was not interested in backing the production of a serve U.S. copyright and to provide a more affordable Bible, which the firm produced in and . publication. In this the octavo edition, Audubon inte- Hilliard and Metcalfe also printed works for faculty grated the text with his images, now reduced using a members. e highly respected Jacob Bigelow was con- camera lucida process from inches to inches. cerned with the quality of the illustrations for his Amer- Despite omissions and flaws, Tyler argued, John James ican Medical Botany, which he wanted to print in color Audubon’s Birds must be regarded as a monumental rather than have hand-colored prints, as was the usual achievement, cataloging fauna and flora, which revolu- practice. Nipps explained that Bigelow experimented tionized the depiction of animals. Paul Romaine with lithography months before the better-known trials of Bass-Otis. For his book, Bigelow developed a mul- Karen Nipps ticolor printing process based on both lithography and ‘Inheritance and Innovation: William Hilliard etching on the stone. e publication, issued in parts by and the First American University Press’ Hilliard and Cummings from through , was re- Harvard University acquired a press in , but it ceased ceived with much acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. production in . In the eighteenth century, Harvard Hilliard’s activities as printer, publisher, type-founder, grew in status and by decided to re-establish its and bookseller continued to grow. omas Jefferson press. Hilliard, already a successful printer who had pre- approached him in to supply quality books from viously worked for the University, was chosen to direct Europe and America for the University of Virginia. the press. e best quality was demanded, and to achieve Hilliard promoted native technical expertise and re- this goal considerable sums of money were spent. Har- garded printing as the foundation of all other arts as vard required much ephemera, such as announcements, it preserved them in enduring documents. Hilliard and tickets, commencement literature, and theses, in addi- his partners formed the core of the Boston book trade; tion to textbooks by American and British scholars. their efforts were to become the Little-Brown publish- It was not a university press in the modern sense. ing firm and e Corner Bookstore. Jeffrey Barr Hilliard was allowed to print materials for clients other than Harvard. In , Philip Metcalfe joined the firm. AFTER A BOX lunch taken on the patio of Washington In partnership with John Abbot Cummings, they pub- University’s West Campus, where we caught up with lished important, serious books. Harvard encouraged old friends and enjoyed the fresh air and sun generously them to challenge New York and Philadelphia printers, provided, we returned to the conference. APHA Newsletter · Winter · Conference report continued William S. Peterson Philip J. Weimerskirch ‘Nineteenth-Century Revivals: ‘Daniel Berkeley Updike and England: Typographical and Spiritual’ Some Little-Known Connections’ Professor Peterson presented a fine case for linking the e final speaker was Philip J. Weimerskirch, Special revival of making ‘books well designed’ in nineteenth- Collections Librarian, Providence Public Library. e century England to the typographic work and intellec- material for his talk was gleaned from the Daniel Berke- tual obsessions of the seventeenth century. He de- ley Updike collection at the Library. scribed the meeting and ensuing friendship and Although Updike is now known for his classic style, collaboration between bookseller and publisher Wil- and in expressed appreciation for the Chiswick liam Pickering (-) and printer Charles Whit- Press On the Making and Issuing of Books, between tingham (-) of the Chiswick Press as one of the and Updike maintained a correspondence with truly happy moments in printing. e choice of old- British printers of the Arts Crafts style. fashioned Caslon types for their publications harks back Updike’s childhood friend Harold Brown was the son to the time of their favored texts, often spiritual, includ- of the great collector of early texts, John Carter Brown. ing works of the Caroline divines (whose arguments rough the Brown family’s British purchasing agent, they apparently preferred over essays by their contem- F. S. Ellis, Updike made contact with William Morris, poraries), the Book of Common Prayer and the Bible. Edward Burne-Jones, Robert Anning Bell, Herbert e two figures lend coherence to two decades of fine Horne, a group of Birmingham artists, and others. printing in the middle of a century that would not see Initially, Updike wished to acquire fonts, border de- the like until Morris’s Kelmscott Press appeared briefly signs, and illustrations from the English artists. In at its end. August he wrote to William Morris asking to use While cautioning us against oversimplifying the con- or buy Kelmscott type. e following year he asked the nection between a beautifully printed book and its spir- T. A. Constable Company if he might either make itual text, Peterson found Pickering and Whittington contact with their typefounder or use their type. Bell had deliberately attempted to evoke the past by attempt- did the plates for e Altar Book, Laurence Housman ing to connect the beauty of books with holiness. (the brother of A. E.) designed some bindings and end- Across the Atlantic, the two printer publishers whose papers, and four of the Birmingham group made illus- aspirations for their work compares best with that of trations for the Merrymount Press (two also worked for Pickering and Whittington showed no similar fusion of Morris). spiritual interests with fine printing. In , the Press printed three numbers of e Quest, Joel Munsell, a Massachusetts-born Congregational- an American edition of the Birmingham group’s maga- ist (-) printed in Albany using fine Caslon Old zine. It also issued e Altar Book, which was exhibited Face, and referred to himself as a disciple of Pickering, in London in October of that year to positive reviews on but his best typographic work was lavished on North both sides of the Atlantic. Even three years later, when American antiquarian and genealogical works such as St. John Hornby wrote Updike for information about Papers Relating to Nantucket. the Merrymount Press, he praised e Altar Book. Daniel Berkeley Updike (-), a Rhode Island- As late as his friend from the Birmingham group, born Episcopalian and certainly a high churchman, was E. H. New, contributed the drawings for Updike’s Rich- interested in Caslon as a reference to eighteenth-cen- ard Smith, First English Settler of Narragansett County, tury American printing rather than as a reference to sev- Rhode Island. us, although Updike’s British corre- enteeth-century Anglican works. His Altar Book (), spondence in the Providence Library’s collection tapers designed in imitation of the Kelmscott style, shows a off after , and although his style had changed dra- fine aesthetic unity, but Updike later came to believe matically from its Kelmscott inspiration, Updike appar- that Victorian Gothic was a dead end. And when his ently kept some contacts from this early phase in his Merrymount Press chose seventeeth-century types for career. Beth Kubly its historical works, they seemed modern. Sara Stone APHA Newsletter · Winter · · Contributing Members · Conference report continued Charles Altschul Sandra D. Kirshenbaum Ken Botnick, co-host: Charles Antin Kay Michael Kramer Open House at the Nancy Spirtas Kranzberg Studio for the Illustrated Book Peter Bain Claudia Laub e conferees then followed a long under-ground pas- Georgia B. Barnhill Ted Lee sageway that lead to the Kranzberg Studio for the Illus- Robert C. Baron John Lie trated Book. ere the group was welcomed and sere- Jeffrey A. Barr Jethro K. Lieberman naded by Professor Ken Botnick’s unique rap rendition Pamela R. Barrie William H. Loos of type history. Who can forget such memorable lines Prof. Terry Belanger Michael W. Lora as: John Bidwell Phillip G. Maddock Jensen was a Frenchman but in Venice he was cool, omas T. Bishop Lucy Marks His type was called Venetian and will always rule. Arthur Merrill Brown III Eric May Aldus and Griffo worked in Venice for a while Jerome H. Buff Prof. H. T. Meserole And the type they designed we call “Old Style.” Terrence P. Chouinard Jane R. Moore Sarah Creighton Irving Oaklander A Frenchman cut some punches of which he was fond Phillip N. Cronenwett Elliot Offner And these are the types we call Garamond. Erin Davis Donald Oresman Baskerville was a man with a mission James R. Donnelley Katherine F. Pantzer He began the typ-o-graphic transition. Mary L. Elder Michael A. Peich (For the complete version of ‘Typo-rapia’ contact Pro- Arthur Ellis, Jr. Greg Powers fessor Botnick.) Donald Farren Will Powers Scott Fennessey Charles A. Rheault, Jr. e open house and reception included a tour and the Patricia Fleming Paul W. Romaine final press run of a multi-color keepsake printed by stu- dents at the studio with Richard Zauft, using wood William Gast Frank Romano types from the Hamilton Museum. Dennis Ichiyama Milton McC. Gatch Mark Samuels Lasner Getty Research Institute Richard H. Schimmelpfeng AFTER AN INTERVAL for rest, reflection, and a little E. M. Ginger Mary C. Schlosser sprucing up, we were taken to the St. Louis Art David Goodrich Nina Schneider Museum, where we replenished our souls with conver- James Grieshaber Alice Schreyer sation and tasty hors d’oeuvres on a patio with a water- fall. e sound of happy voices during dinner suggested Carol P. Grossman Sherwin Beach Press that the refreshed conventioneers continued to enjoy George W. Hamilton Jane Rodgers Siegel themselves. Peter E. Hanff Carolyn L. Smith After dinner, Irene Tichenor, our President, greeted Lee Harrer Virginia Smith the crowd and introduced Eric Holzenberg, whose work Leland M. Hawes, Jr. Robert H. Smith, Jr. at the Grolier Club has made him perforce a habitué Jean Hayter Deidre C. Stam of after-dinner talks. His remarks, entitled ‘Less Fine John B. Hench Roderick Stinehour an Private: Sir omas Phillipps’s Middle Hill Press,’ Martyn Hitchcock Szilvia E. Szmuk chronicled the great collector’s not-so-great printing Dennis L. Holsapple J. Curtis Taylor endeavors with a wealth of amusing anecdote. Roland A. Hoover George E. ompson e evening concluded with a greeting from the Dean Albert A. Howard Irene Tichenor of the Washington University Libraries, and remarks Bradley Hutchinson James Tung from Mark Samuels Lasner, who announced that next Martin W. Hutner Muriel Underwood year, instead of a conference, APHA will make a bid for attention and new members by going on the road with a Jeffrey H. Kaimowitz David Whitesell series of events around the country. Plans then bring us J. G. Kavanaugh Helena Wright together again in at the University of Delaware for Richard Kegler Maxim Zhukov a conference on illustration. Richard A. Kelly Vic Zoschak, Jr. conclusion on page J. F. Killie APHA Newsletter · Winter ·
Conference report conclusion
T H E VEATCHS S, O
In the morning, we were whisked away to the Mercan-
ART S O F THE tile Library, at their new site in the library of the Uni-
. versity of Missouri at St. Louis. A beautiful exhibit of
B OOK the work of Kay Michael Kramer’s press, e Printery,
was on view, as were paintings by omas Hart Benton.
. After a generous buffet brunch, we heard a talk by Eric
P. Newman, a collector of American numismatics. e
PO Box
talk, designed to engage our printing historical atten-
Northampton . Massachusetts tion, was on paper money of the eighteenth century.
rough an impressive array of slides, and a select dis-
Phone --
play of some of Mr. Newman’s collection, we were in-
Fax --
troduced to some of the issues in the design of early
paper currency, including the need for the bill to be rec-
. .
.
ognized and trusted, to be understood by illiterates, and
[email protected] of course, the need to circumvent counterfeiting. Two
www.veatchs.com of the especially interesting examples included Benja-
min Franklin’s use of hard-to-counterfeit nature-printed
leaves on Pennsylvania currency, and some bills printed
. . . by an unknown method in two colors in a complicated pattern that sometimes cut across letters, which was ex- actly replicated on each note.
e APHA Newsletter www.printinghistory.org And so another stimulating conference came to an end.
VICE-PRESIDENT FOR PUBLICATIONS e editor would like to thank the kind souls credited above Lissa Dodington
PRODUCTION EDITOR Suzanne Micheau Tinnian