Inting in the Sap Francisco Bay Area Series
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Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancrof t Library Berkeley, California Books and Printing in the Sap Francisco Bay Area Series Leah Wollenberg Stella Patri Duncan Olmsted Stephen Gale Herrick Barbara Fallon Hiller THE HAND BOOKBINDING TRADITION IN THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA With an Introduction by Deborah M. Evetts Interviews Conducted by Ruth Teiser and Catherine Harroun 1980-1981 Copyright @ 1982 by Thi Regents of the University of California This manuscript is made available for research purposes. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Wbrary of the University of California at Berkeley. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, 486 Library, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: To cite the volume: The Hand Bookbinding Tradition in the San Francisco Bay Area,. an oral history series conducted 1980-1981, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Wbrary, University of California, Berkeley, 1982. To cite individual interview: Stella Patri, "An Interview with Stella Patri," an oral history conducted in 1980 by Ruth Teiser and Catherine Harroun, in The Hand Bookbinding Tradition in the San Francisco Bay Area, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library,- - University of ~alifornia,Berkeley, 1982 Copy no. TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE 1 INTRODUCTION by Deborah M. Evetts iii I AN INTERVIEW WITH LEAH LEVY WOLLENBERG INTERVIEW HISTORY Studying with Octavia Holden and Belle McMurtry Young A Bookbinding Studio Recollections of Earlier Binders Exhibitions and Exhibitors Peter Fahey and Other Teachers The Hand Bookbinders of California and the 1978 Exhibition Collections of Nne Bindings Young Bookbinders Studio Tour TAPE GUIDE I1 AN INTERVIEW WITH STELLA PATRI INTERVIEW HISTORY Initial Interest in Bookbinding Studying with Peter and Herbert Fahey Learning Book Restoration in Europe Beginning a Career as a Book Restorer Restoring Books in Florence After the Flood Paper, Apprentices, and Teachers Bay Area Bookbinders Recent Work TAPE GUIDE 111 AN INTERVIEW WITH DUNCAN OLMSTED INTERVIEW HISTORY 1939 Exposition and the Faheys Reminiscences of Various Binders Collectors and Bookbinders TAPE GUIDE TABLE OF CONTENTS -- con't. IV AN INTERVIEW WITH STEPHEN GALE HERRICK INTERVIEW HISTORY Studying with Peter Fahey and Barbara Hiller Equipping a Studio The Hand Bookbinders of California and Its Predecessor Bookbindings Completed Choosing Books. to Bind The 1978 International Exhibition The Younger Binders Boob Bound' and Books Collected TAPE GUIDE V AN INTERVIEW WITH BARBARA FALLON HILLER INTERVIEW HISTORY Learning Bookbinding in San Francisco and Paris Creating a Career Successful Students Exhibitions A Binding Described A Look into the Future TAPE GUIDE APPENDIX A Octavia Holden: Letters Regarding Teaching Bookbinding at the California School of Fine Arts (later the San Francisco Art Institute) APPENDIX B Hazel Dreis: A Memorandum from Maggie Harrison in Response to an Inquiry from Stephen Gale Herrick INDEX PREFACE This group of interviews fulfills several valuable functions. It gives previously unrecorded information on the descent of the tradition of hand bookbinding in this region, from Octavia Holden and Belle McMurtry Young to Edna Peter Fahey and the men and women here interviewed, as well as a number of their colleagues who are referred to in these reminiscences. It is worth noting that Mrs. Fahey is the central figure in bringing the art and craft forward to its present practitioners, having been a teacher of each of those interviewed, although they were chosen not for that reason but because of their pre-eminence in their field. Thus their recollections also preserve information about their own significant careers and their opinions about bookbinding and bookbinders. That a number of these opinions differ is in itself of interest. The interviews are, furthermore, a valuable extension of the Regional Oral History Office series on fine printing and books in the San Francisco Bay Area, and a valuable addition to the growing body of material about and collection of fine hand bookbindings in The Bancroft Library. Discussion of the region's bookbinding tradition began some years ago when Leah Wollenberg and Ruth Teiser had a number of conversations about it. There were also later exchanges of information with Stephen Gale Herrick, who had rediscovered an early twentieth century bookbinders' organization, and had gathered information about Octavia Holden. He also kindly gave the interviewers access to his files, so far as is known the only body of material on Bay Area bookbinding, and articles he has written. But the idea of creating the interview volume came from Leah Wollenberg herself, who saw it as a record that would be valuable to those who in the future will wish to learn about the bindings and binders of this place and time. Then she and her husband, Harold Wollenberg, implemented the idea by making a generous grant for the purpose to The Bancroft Library. We are grateful to,Deborah M. Evetts of The Pierpont Morgan Library for contributing in her introduction to this volume a knowledgeable expert's view of Bay Area bookbinding. The Regional Oral History Office was established to tape record autobiographical interviews with persons prominent in recent California history. The Office is under the direction of Willa K. Baum, and under the administration of James D. Hart, the Director of The Bancroft Library. Ruth Teiser is project director for the books and printing series. Ruth Teiser Catherine Harroun Interviewers 12 November 1982 Regional Oral History Office 486 The Bancroft Library University of California at Berkeley BOOKS -AND PRINTING ---IN THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA Interviews Completed by November 1982 Dorothy & Lewis Allen, Book Printing with the Handpress 1968 (68 pp.) Brother Antoninus, Brother Antoninus: Poet, Printer, and ReZigioua 1966 (97 pp.) Mallette Dean, Artist and Printer 1970 (112 pp. - Edwin Grabhorn, RecoZZections of the Grabhorn Press 1968 (114 pp.) Jane Grabhorn, The Colt Press 1966 (43 pp.) Robert Grabhorn, Fine Printing and the Grabhorn Press 1968 (129 pp.) Sherwood & Katharine Grover, The Grabhorn Press and the Grace Hoper Press 1972 (94 pp.) fie Hand Bookbinding Witionin the San Frcmcisco Bay Area. Interviews with Leah Wollenberg, Stella Patri, Duncan Olmsted, Stephen Gale Herrick, and Barbara Fallon Hiller, 1982 (194 pp.) Carroll T. Harris, Conversations on Type and Printing, 1967 1976 (209 pp.) James D. Hart, Fine Printers of the San Francisco Bay Area- 1969 (95 pp.) Quail Hawkins, The Art of BookseZZing: Quai2 Hawkins and the Sather Gate Bobk Shop 1979 (155 pp.) . -. Warren R. Howell, Two San ~ranciscoBookmen 1967 (73 pp.) Haywood Hunt, RecoZZections of San Francisco Printers 1967 (53 pp.) Lawton Kennedy, A, Life in Printing 1968 (211 pp.) Oscar Lewis, Literary San Francisco 1965 (151 pp.) David Magee, BookseZZing and Creating Books 1969 (92 pp.) Walter Mann, Photoengraving, 1910-1969 1973 (90 pp.) - Bernhard Schmidt, Herman Diedrichs, Max Schmidt, Jr. The Schmidt Lithograph Company, VoZume I 1968 (238 pp. Lorenz Schmidt, Ernest Wuthmann, Stewart Norris, The Schmidt Lithograph Company, VoZume 11 1969 (157 pp.) Albert Sperisen, San Francisco Printers, 1925-1965 1966 (91 pp.) Jack W. Stauffacher, A Printed Word Has Its Own Measure' 1969 (107 pp.) Edward DeWitt Taylor, Supplement to Francis P. Farquhar interview 1960 (45 pp. ~drianWilson, Printing and Book Designing 1966 (108 pp. INTRODUCTION Bookbinding is an esoteric subject unappreci- ated by, even unknown to, all but a very small section of society. The booksellers, librarians and collectors whose business and pleasure it is to be knowledgeable on the subject are delighted when a newcomer asks for information. They expand endlessly on the merits of a particular style of design, or the national strain of binding -- English, French, German -- to which they subscribe, or their own predilection for asymmetric head- bands, or the superiority of gold tooling over blind. And then there are the students who gather in small groups -- generally not more than six -- to learn the ancient secrets of the craft. They come for many different reasons: because they love books, because they have a favorite that needs repair, because they have seen fine bindings in an exhibition and have been inspired, or simply because they are drawn to the beauti- ful materials -- leather, marbled paper, gold for tooling. All come expecting to produce a full leather binding with their own design in the first six lessons, and it is only those with a real love for the craft who continue their studies after the first cloth case, box or similar exer- cise. Leah Wollenberg, Stella Patri, Duncan Olmsted, Gale Herrick and Barbara Hiller, the subjects of these interviews, have that love for the craft. And they have shown great tenacity as well, searching out the available classes, persevering with their studies until they have become recognized binders in their own right. Now their work is sought by collectors and appreciated by special collections librarians. Three of them devoted themselves to fine binding while the other two turned to restoration and teaching. The impetus that brought them to bookbinding was different for each of them, but they all found book- binding to be far more than merely a craft, and this is why it continues to hold their interest. Bookbinding is a very subtle form of artistic expression. Simple lines and decorative tools can be combined for a formal design which can complement a text and which even the beginning student or the artistically untrained binder can execute. Equally, a text can be .used as a springboard for a design that may be pictorial or abstract, simple or complex, created by a sophisticated artist or by someone with only a limited training in design.