A composite from the Nebiolo General Catalogue of 1939.
Sun, Nov. 8 | Alessandro Colizzi, design faculty at Politechnic University in Milan, Italy, presented his research into the history of the Nebiolo Foundry, particularly the origins and development of their art studio. Founded in Turin, Italy, in 1852, Nebiolo was a small business launched in a newly united Italy. [Read more]
Erik Spiekermann at his Spiekermann’s Precision Table in his P98a Studio in Berlin (Screenshot from his presentation)
Sat., Nov. 7 | Type designer and printer Erik Spiekermann joined us from the entrance of p98a, his letterpress workshop in Berlin, Germany. He’s wearing a neat white lab coat, like that of a German engineer—or, as he deadpans, of a mad scientist—and invites us in for a tour. [Read more]
L: Blake’s “The Temptation and Fall of Eve,” 1808. One of the illustrations in Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” The Butts Set. (William Blake Archive). R: A composite of three common presses from the early, middle, and late eighteenth century. (Seth Gottlieb)
Illusory Painting: The History of Hidden Fore-Edge Pictures, Isabel Einaudi Cardiff (Mills College, Oakland CA)
False Imprints, New Ways of Reading Work, Emma Studebaker (Mills College, Oakland CA)
The Design Evolution of the Eighteenth-Century English Wooden Common Press, Seth Gottlieb & Veronica Hebbard (Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester NY)
Satanic Knowledge: Milton and the Argument for Unlicensed Printing, Kalie McGuirl (Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Great Barrington MA)
Moderated by Sara Sauers, APHA’s Vice President for Programs, this is the first APHA conference to feature undergraduate paper presentations. [Read more]
Printing room at Dun Emer Press ca. 1904. (Courtesy Trinity College)
Kathleen Walkup: “Pulling the Devil by the Tail: Elizabeth Corbet Yeats’ Cuala Press” ¶ Richard Mathews: “Frederic Goudy and the American Hands-on Hand Press Tradition”
Kathy Walkup began by showing an iconic photograph in the history of printing. Taken in Ireland at the Dun Emer Press in 1903, it shows Elizabeth Corbet “Lolly” Yeats, dressed in a full-length smock, at work at an Albion hand press. Two other similarly dressed women share the print shop, one preparing ink and the other sitting at a table in the foreground, checking proofs. Walkup pointed out that while this image is often seen as an example of genteel ladies keeping themselves occupied with a “suitable” art, this interpretation is far from the truth. Elizabeth Yeats was no hobby printer. She and her siblings W.B., Jack, and Susan Mary “Lily” Yeats, were called upon to support themselves and their father, the Irish painter John Butler Yeats, who failed to provide for his family adequately with his portrait painting. [Read more]