it’s Fine Press Friday!
This week we present another title illustrated by American artist and illustrator, Lynd Ward (1905-1985): Idylls of the King, by English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), with introduction by Henry Van Dyke, and published in 1952 by the Limited Editions Club, in an edition of 1500 copies signed by the artist. Idylls of the King was first published as a cycle of twelve narrative poems, between 1859 and 1885.
Lynd Ward made over forty individual lithograph illustrations for this fine press edition. The illustrations have at least three colors each, Ward drew directly on the printing matrix, an incredible amount of work. This direct process is sometimes called autolithography. The term, autolithography aims to differentiate the direct process of an artist drawing on the printing matrix, a stone or plate, from lithographs that are made by transferring an image to the stone by other means. The lithographic plates were printed at the Duenewald Printing Corporation. The typographic layout was designed by Carl Purington Rollins in Bakersville types. Goudy Text was used for headers and the title. The type was printed at the Printing-Office of the Yale University Press in New Haven, where Rollins had been master printer from 1920 to 1948. It is quarter-bound in vermilion sheepskin and English buckram cloth. The cover is stamped in gold with a design by Lynd Ward. This book is a gift of Loryn Romadka, from the collection of Austin Fredric Lutter.
View other posts with work by Lynd Ward.
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– Teddy, Special Collections Graduate Intern
