Decorative Sunday
This Sunday we feature woodcuts, photogravure, and specimens from legendary American papermaker Dard Hunter’s A Papermaking Pilgrimage to Japan, Korea and China, published in 1936 in New York by Pynson Printers in a limited edition of 350. Each edition is signed by Hunter and the founder of Pynson Printers, typographer and book designer Elmer Adler. The woodcuts were cut by J. J. Lankes and the photogravure plates were printed by Photogravure & Color Co. of New York. The book was bound by master binder Gerhard Gerlach, a student of lauded German bookbinder Ignatz Wiemeler. The book includes original specimens collected by Hunter.
The first photogravure above (image #2), the frontispience for the book, is a kakemono by an unknown Japanese artist memorializing “Three Gods of Papermaking.” Depicted are Cai Lun, traditionally attributed as the Chinese inventor of paper in the early second century and Damjing (Donchō in Japan), the Korean Buddhist monk that is often credited with introducing paper to Japan in 610. They are shown alongside Seibei Mochizuki, who in 1572 brought papermaking to Nishijima, a mountainous region of Yamanashi Prefecture.
This book is the generous gift of the trusts of Hazel O. Metzner and Delia G. Ovitz, local sisters who worked as Librarians at UWM’s predecessor institution, the Milwaukee State Normal School.
You can read more about Dard Hunter in this Typography Tuesday post.
See more wood engravings by J. J. Lankes.
Find more Decorative Sunday posts here.
-Olivia, Special Collections Graduate Intern