Photographs courtesy of Hay Library, Brown University

The Cincinnati printer Oscar Harpel produced and published Harpel’s Typograph in 1870. The Typograph was promotion piece, company advertising presented as a printing guidebook and an artistic sampler. It caused a splash among printers and made Harpel famous. On its strength, Harpel’s colorful presswork and ornate typography became “artistic printing.” Today Harpel’s Typograph fetches a high, and climbing, price in the rare book trade. [Read more]

Isaac Gewirtz, of the New York Public Library, has asked that this sad news be forwarded to APHA members.

On December 8, Stephen G. Crook, a long-time member and Executive Secretary of APHA, who retired from the New York Public Library’s Berg Collection in 2010, died. A memorial for him will be held on a weekday evening, at NYPL, in late January or February. The APHA membership will be notified as soon as arrangements have been finalized.

For twenty-one years, Steve brought passionate commitment, broad knowledge of English and American literature, careful attention, and a highly developed set of reference and descriptive skills to his work as a librarian in the Berg Collection, which was his calling. Legions of researchers benefited from his wise guidance. It was a privilege to work with him.

Isaac Gewirtz
Curator of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection
of English and American Literature

Megan Singleton spoke about her 2011 visit to the ruins of a former hand papermaking district in Lombardy called the Valley of the Paper Makers. Proportedly established in 1384 in the mountains above the villages of Tuscolano and Maderno on Lake Garda, most of the mill sites date to the sixteenth century when the area was abandoned due to the plague. However in the late seventeenth century it came to be re-occupied and by 1730 thirty-eight mills were reopened. [Read more]

Left: Albrecht Dürer, St. Jerome in His Study, 1514 [MMA. 19.73.68]; verso; and x-ray. (Angela Campbell)

Angela Campbell, Assistant Conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, spoke about the paper production story behind Dürer’s Meisterstiche (“master engravings”) which include: Knight, Death, and the Devil; Melencolia I; and St. Jerome in His Study. Durer’s Meisterstiche represented an unusual opportunity for study because of past scholarship on the three works and because the Metropolitan Museum holds six impressions of Knight, Death, and the Devil, as well as four impressions of Melencolia I and four impressions of St. Jerome in His Study, each with slight inconsistencies. Art historian Joseph Meder’s chronology of Dürer’s impressions divided Melencolia into two states, the first state in which the number “9” appeared backwards in the background and the second in which it is printed correctly. In addition, many of the surviving Meisterstiche impressions had a distinguishing horizontal crease on their versos, which she thought which might be part of the history of the production of the prints. [Read more]

Left: a page of . Every page has illustrations surrounded by texts. Right: book cover exhibiting burnished design. (Val Lucas)

Kazuko Hioki and Anne Covell’s presentation took us from the Edo period in Japan (1603–1868) to the present day at the University of Iowa’s Center for the Book. Kazuko displayed examples of Japanese books, which were mostly side-sewn folded sheets printed from finely carved woodblocks. Some had embossed and decorated covers created from layers of recycled and dyed paper. [Read more]

Paper mill in Kapuskasing, Ontario, n.d. Library and Archives Canada.

This session brought together the serendipitous pairing of Geoffrey Little and George Barnum for a panel titled Twentieth-Century Paper in Circulation. Paper played a key role in debates over U.S. tariffs and the growth of the U.S. Government Printing Office (US GPO). Papermaking thus became an important point of engagement for working out tensions between robust cultural discourse, government publication and commercial opportunities for profit. The two well-researched presentations highlighted how manufacturers, politicians and government officials negotiated the meaning of papermaking in a capitalist republic with an increasingly strong central government. [Read more]

Karla Elling makes sustainable keepsake paper from Hesperaloe funifera fiber at the Mummy Mountain Press studio in Paradise Valley, Arizona. (Wendy Burk)

Session II, Panel 2. “Contemporary Hand Papermaking and Letterpress at Mummy Mountain Press,” presented by Wendy Burk and Karla Elling and “Experiments with Paper & Print at Paperhouse Studio,” presented by Flora Shum and Emily Cook.

Before the conference, I had the chance to see a broadside of remarkable translucency by Karla Elling of Mummy Mountain Press. The poem was by W.S. Merwin and simply titled “Paper.” Printed in white ink on white Japanese kozo paper, the broadside was designed for hanging in a window, encouraging light to shine though the sheet and Merwin’s words. The objective was not to provide easy readability or frameablity, but a close, simultaneous reading of text and fiber. The paper was arguably the poem, and vice versa, just as this panel set out to explore. [Read more]

Bank of England Five Pound Note, January 1, 1855. (Richard Kelly)

Session I, Panel 2. “The Anatomy of a Banknote: 1855 Innovations in Design, Papermaking, and Printing,” presented by Richard Kelly and “Calendered Paper, Electrotyping, Hard-Packing and Late Nineteenth-Century “Fancy Type Faces,” presented by Michael Knies. [Read more]

One of a Thousand Fires, 2006. Poems by Cissy Ross, book design, images, printing and binding by Inge Bruggeman.

Inge Bruggeman‘s talk began by focusing on the relationship between ink on paper and questioned our culture’s confidence in its permanence in our environment. Given advances in technology and the ways in which we interact and communicate, she asked how long will paper and text last? Will it stay forever? The printed page can be seen now as a nostalgic place to hold ideas. Paper and printing are being pushed towards objectification and art rather than everyday events and objects. What is the relevance of paper in general and the relevance of paper in artists’ books? There are still elements of culturally relevant paper, such as a receipt roll from a grocery store, as well as ramifications of shifting away from paper based environments. Inge noted her concern about the future of the archive. Will there be an impact on the scholarly record when studying or doing research from disc or flash drives? [Read more]

Visitors explore Studio 308 on Friday, October 17. (Paul Romaine)

1890 Bryant Street Studios hosted an open studio for conference members on Friday afternoon, followed by a reception for the Friends of Dard Hunter Members’ Exhibition. The Best Foods Building, an historic warehouse located in the Mission District of San Francisco, is home to an array of artist’s spaces, including one book arts studio. [Read more]