Here are some fancy, schmancy wood-engraved initials from our recent acquisition, Fonderies de caractères et leur matériel dans les Pays-Bas du XVe au XIXe siècle byCharles Enschedé (1855-1919), with specimens from the extensive typographic collection of the venerable 320-year-old printing and typefounding firm Joh. Enschedé en zonen, published in Harlem by De Erven F. Bohn in 1908.This title is one of type historian and designer Jerry Kelly’s recent One Hundred Books Famous in Typography (The Grolier Club, 2022).These highly calligraphic Gothic initials were engraved in wood in 1741 and were from the printing house of Pieter de Vries in Schiedam, Netherlands. Our copy of Fonderies de caractères is from the collection of New York artist Elijah Silverman and bears his signature.
This week we present more prints by the legendary American wood engraver John DePol (1913-2004), this time as illustrations for a collection of poems by the English translator and poet Walter Shewring,Later Verses and Earlier, printed letterpress in 1988 in an edition of 150 copies at Neil Shaver’s Yellow Barn Press in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Shaver handset the 14 pt. Joanna type with Perpetua Titling, and printed the edition on dampened Frankfurt Cream paper. Of DePol, Shaver writes:
John DePol ranks today as one of America’s top wood engravers… . Since the 1930′s John DePol has been capturing little corners of our world with the engraver’s burin. Small churches in France, the back alleys of Ireland, the aging buildings of New York, all have been frozen in time with serene, sometimes dramatic, skill. He is sensitive to atmosphere and the romantic age of things, the mood of changing seasons and the images of history. His is the perfect talent for the Shewring verse.
Our copy of Later Verses and Earlier is a gift from our friend Jerry Buff.
I’ve been excitedly waiting for this specimen book to make its way through processing and into our catalog so I can share these gorgeous decorative papers with you all. I hope some design nerds out there will share my enthusiasm. The book isA Specimen Book of Pattern Papers Designed For and in Use at the Curwen Press,published in London for the Curwen Press byThe Fleuron Ltd. in 1928 in a limited edition of 220, containing 31 samples of pattern paper, with an introductory essay by artist and Curwen collaborator Paul Nash.
From Nash’s introduction:
The papers in the following Collection are from designs reproduced by offset printing, the original key pattern being a line block from a drawing, or wood engraving … The latest designs are mostly from blocks engraved upon wood, sometimes with another colour applied either flat or grained. This notable output by an English printer is another sign of the steadily growing conviction that distinction of design is not only aesthetically, but commercially important. Every article, from the Shopman’s showcard to a motor-car, must have economy and beauty of form. It is a lesson we are learning very late, but if we can learn it intelligently, and not like parrots, we may yet recapture what has been so long lost with us, a pride in style.
The Reverend John Curwen established the Curwen Press in 1863 in order to produce hymn sheets for his congregation, where he was responsible for popularizing the tonic sol-fa method of sight singing. John’s grandson Harold Curwentook over management of the press in 1914. Inspired by William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement and invigorated by fresh design ideas after a sojourn in Leipzig, Harold led the firm in a new direction, focusing on typography, design, and collaboration with artists in print projects. The Curwen Press, together with its associates in the Design and Industries Association,were highly influential in 21st century printing and publishing in the West.
The Curwen Press closed in 1984, but the Curwen name lives on in the Curwen Studio. The studio was established in 1958 and managed by esteemed printmaker Stanley Jones and specializes in fine art lithographic printing.
See image captions for design attributions. This book was acquired with support from the John S. Best Fund.
This week we present original wood engravings by English painter and wood engraver Paul Nash (1889-1946) from the 1928 Golden Cockerel Press edition of Jules Tellier’s 1887 story Abd-er-Rhaman in Paradise, printed in an edition of 400 copies. While he is remembered mainly as a painter, Nash was also an accomplished wood engraver and was an early and prominent of the Society of Wood Engravers, of which his younger brother John was one of the ten founding members.
Abd-er-Rhaman in Paradise was printed during the period when the Golden Cockerel Press was owned by another prominent English wood engraver, Robert Gibbings, another of the ten founding members of the Society of Wood Engravers. Gibbings could have easily illustrated this book himself, but as Roderick CaveandSarah Manson point out in their definitive A History of the Golden Cockerel Press 1920-1960,
… for him to commission Paul Nash to illustrate Tellier’s story was brilliant. Abd-er-Rhaman (1928) was splendidly successful. The reviewer in the Times Literary Supplement didn’t like the engravings, saying it would ‘probably appeal more to the devotees of the most “advanced” form of this art than to more old-fashioned persons,’ but now Nash’s illustrations seem just right.
Our copy is another gift from our friend Jerry Buff.
Today we present Unwin’s fine wood-engraved historiated initials for the chapter openings of the book. The initials mesh well with the solid stateliness and deep color of Stanley Morison’s Poliphilus typeface (released by Monotype in 1923), and integrates uniformly with Unwin’s engraved illustrations, creating a harmonious and holistic presentation to the entire production. This copy is another gift from our friend and benefactor Jerry Buff.
Ex Libris Owl - rewarding Sunday studio work #exlibris #bookplate #owl #olivebranch #wood #engraving #relief #printmaking #grabado
Monday Motivation Owl
Now, here’s an owl to start the week off right, from a wood-engraved bookplate recently cut and proofed by our friend, Kentucky wood engraver Joanne Price. Be sure to follow her work and activities @starpointestudio.
English-American artist Nora S. Unwin(1907-1982)is remembered most as a prolific children’s book illustrator and author. Her illustrations for her American friend and collaborator Elizabeth Yates’sAmos Fortune, Free Man won the 1951 Newbery Medal. However, Unwin, who was a member of the renowned publishing family of Allen & Unwin, was also a highly-accomplished wood engraver, having received her training at Leon Underwood’s prestigious London art school, the Kingston School of Art, and finally the Royal College of Art where she received a diploma in design in 1932. She met her lifelong friend Elizabeth Yates in England in 1937 and followed her back to America in 1946, where she remained for the rest of her life, illustrating well over 100 books and writing and illustrating twelve books of her own.
This week we highlight four delightful wood engravings by Washington artist, sculptor, and printmaker Gretchen Daiber that serve as illustrations for Welsh poet Leslie Norris’s 1984 chapbook of poems A Tree Sequence letterpress printed by Suzanne Ferris on handmade papers by Neal Bonham at their Sea Pen Press and Papermill in Seattle, Washington, in a limited edition of 20 copies signed by the poet and artist..
Daiber lives and works in Leavenworth, Washington, a Bavarian-styled village in the Cascade Mountains of central Washington State. She writes that “My work reflects the landscape and environment which I love– the mountains where I live… . my passion is to record and interpret my surroundings with sculpture, pastels, original prints, journal sketches and watercolors.“
We also include two watermark illustrations by Neal Bonham. At first, we couldn’t understand why there are two blank handmade sheets of paper in the middle of the book made of different fibers than the paper in the rest of the book. Then we tuned a page and the light caught the watermarked illustrations of trees and their shadows. Both Ferris and Bonham graduated from the book arts program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where they were students of the great letterpress printer, book artist, and papermaker Walter Hamady.
Our copy of A Tree Sequence is another donation from our friend Jerry Buff.
Because we are in somewhat of a fowl mood, today we present a sampling of ROOSTERS! from Mr. Enschedé‘s selection of cuts. We’re cock-sure you’ll just crow over these fine-feathered foundry fellows. Click on the images for the engraving credits.
An award-wining short story writer, Leatherbarrow also trained as an artist at Hornsey College of ArtandWalthamstow School of Art, and in the late 1970s started Little Bird Press for her own writing and that of her friends, illustrated with original prints in wood engraving, linocuts, and silk screen. “I began,” she writes, “with an Adana hand press on a table in a corner of my bedroom then progressed to my own workshop above a car showroom on Tottenham High Street,” and would well her books “at Covent Garden Market, craft fairs and bookshops throughout the UK.” She continued illustrating and handprinting until the mid-1980s, when she began writing short stories to great success.
Leatherbarrow has also worked as a librarian, a literary festival organizer, and a university lecturer. In 2010, she retired from lecturing, but continues to write from her home in southwest Scotland.
