Members of the Fellowship Committee this year were Haven Hawley, Chair, and Johanna Drucker and Miriam Intrator as members. We are pleased to provide information about the winner of the 2024 Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship in Printing History. We received fifteen applications, and competition was again extremely strong.
The American Printing History Association has awarded the 2024 Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship in Printing History to Nilkantha Pal. Pal’s project is titled “Children’s Magazines in Colonial Bengal: Childhood, Child Readers, and the Bengali Print Market, ca. 1880–1950.” His research project combines a detailed study of the printing technologies of children’s literature with an examination of how such works constructed the concept of childhood.
In his application, Pal described his scholarship as “investigating the printing sphere for Bengali children, the aesthetic or material aspects of their reading materials, particularly children’s magazines, their production and circulation processes”. He will be extending his research on this topic through archival research at the British Library, with the support of the award.
Nilkantha Pal is a PhD Research Scholar in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Mohali and holds an M.A. in History from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, one of the leading universities in India.
Congratulations to Nilkantha Pal on this award.
On behalf of the Fellowship Committee, I would like to thank the entire group of applicants for the 2024 Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship in Printing History and wish each of you well in your printing history work. We received a number of very strong applications, and we regret that our Association has only one award to provide. We are grateful for the opportunity to learn about the research of many wonderful scholars.
“Documenting the Engraving of Display Matrices on a Modified Preis Engraver: The Process of Jim Walczak at Sycamore Press and Typefoundry”
The process of typecasting in the United States is quickly becoming a lost art. A handful of small commercial foundries are in operation, with few making their own new designs. Val Lucas of Bowerbox Press proposes to document and pass on the process for creating new casting matrices for metal types so that printers may continue using traditional methods for new designs. One of the few typecasters able to create new matrices is Jim Walczak of Sycamore Press and Typefoundry.
Walczak began casting printing type in 1985 and has kept alive many of the processes used in this craft. He acquired a batch of equipment, including a modified Preis Panto Utility Engraver from typecaster Paul Hayden Duensing in 2006. Jim continues to use this machine to create custom designs and replacement sorts, and there is no existing documentation on his engraving process.
The fellowship will support research to fully document Jim’s current engraving process and piece together Duensing’s process from sparse notes and a few published articles to allow the continuation of this process for creating new matrices and help keep this branch of typefounding alive. The project would entail spending time at Jim’s shop, documenting his steps from beginning drawing to finished matrix ready for the caster. Lucas will document the process with video recordings, and written process notes that can be used as a guide for repeating this process in other shops. Lucas would like to create a written, illustrated guide, as well. Fully documenting Jim’s process will add to the pool of knowledge in the small remaining typecasting community.
Tipoteca Italiana Fondazione, founded in 1995, is a museum, archive, library, and “working studio print shop” in Cornuda, Italy. Sandro Berra, Director of Tipoteca, presented on his organization’s efforts to “encourage the dialogue between past and present” and “discover and experience the beauty of letterpress” as part of a panel with Mark Barbour of the other 2023 institutional awardee, the International Printing Museum. Open to the public for tours, workshops, and research, Tipoteca is the first international organization to be selected for APHA’s Institutional award.
The International Printing Museum in Carson, California, was established in 1988, and brings “the history of printing and books to life.” Home to “one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive collections of antique printing machinery and graphic arts equipment,” the Museum not only hosts tours, workshops, and classes, but serves as community hub by hosting the annual Los Angeles Printers Fair, now in its fifteenth year. At APHA’s 2020 Awayzgoose, Director Mark Barbour presented, as part of a panel on preserving the history of craft and printing, with another 2023 awardee, Tipoteca’s Sandro Berra.
Fritz Klinke is a restorer of historic buildings, restaurateur, holder of master blueprints for Vandercook press components, and proprietor of NA Graphics “for all your printing needs.” His resources have helped outfit startup presses and keep existing presses operating. He falls into the somewhat odd but valuable category that 2022 APHA honoree Dr. Edward Petko did: he is a grand enabler and champion. A pillar of the print universe as much as of his home base, Silverton, Colorado, Klinke is, therefore, recognized for his unique capacity to enable and equip the letterpress community.
Irene Tichenor is a print historian whose masterwork centers on printer and typography scholar Theodore Low De Vinne (1828–1914). Author of No Art Without Craft: The Life of Theodore Low De Vinne, Printer, Tichenor has served as APHA Trustee, Vice President for Publications, and President (1998–2001). She is a member of the Grolier Club, past vice president of the Bibliographical Society of America, and holds a PhD and an MLS from Columbia University.
Mian Chen is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of History, Northwestern University. His research focuses on the making of Communist propaganda machines in twentieth-century China. His dissertation combines political history, printing history, and global history to examine how domestic and transnational interpersonal networks and the burgeoning print culture contributed to the rise of Communist propaganda in China from the foundation of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921 through the period of high socialism in the 1960s.
Dr. Petko has quietly promoted the development of printing history and book arts programs throughout the Southwest for decades. An avid collector of presses, type, and letterpress equipment, he has made these precious resources available to a large number of institutions. His desire to encourage interest in the history of printing and to promote continued work with historic printing equipment has succeeded in inspiring incredible growth and excitement in our field. Some of the institutions which have benefited from his largess include Arizona State University, UCLA, UC Riverside, California State LA, Harvey Mudd College, the University of Southern California, and the California State Library among others.
BRAD FREEMAN
Covers of the Journal of Artists’ Books.
Brad has been the publisher and editor of the Journal of Artists’ Books from 1994–2020. This journal earned an international reputation as a forum for lively debate in the growing field of artists’ books during an important period of renewed activity and focus on historical methods of printing. In addition to nurturing this publication and the activities of folks in this field, Brad has been an active printer and educator. His hands-on work editing, designing, and actually printing this publication in lithographic print shops at SUNY-Purchase, New York; Nexus Press, Atlanta; and Columbia College, Chicago, demonstrated the vital role of historic printing technology in a world enduring the rapid technological changes of the digital revolution.
Jenna Rodriguez, Print Production Fellow, 2012. MFA Interdisciplinary Book Arts Program, Columbia College Chicago.
Since 1974 the Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, New York, has provided classes and support encouraging the creation of artists’ books. Frequently produced on historic equipment, the printing of artists’ books has been a major force in the preservation of historic printing equipment as well as in the founding of centers providing public access to printing and training on historic equipment. The Women’s Studio Workshop is one of the largest publishers of artists’ books in addition to originating exhibitions and providing lectures around the country.
The American Printing History Association is pleased to support Marina Garone Gravier‘s research project “Latin American type specimens before 1950: towards a hand list.” Her proposed project to collect typographic specimens into a scholarly database is innovative and much needed. It will benefit all who study the history of the printed book, typefaces, and typographic design. We are pleased to be associated with her research.
