#jerry buff

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Typography Tuesday

Pelican Press Borders

The Pelican Press, founded in 1916 by British printer and activist Francis Meynell (1891-1975) -- who also founded the more well-known Nonesuch Press in 1922, used a wide range of typographic ornaments and borders. The press published this specimen book, Typography: Type Specimens . . . of the Pelican Press in London in the 1920s for the benefit of their customers "to assist the amateur to a right appreciation of type-forms." Furthermore,

. . . it shows what can be commanded into his service by any buyer of printing; and it attempts to demonstrate what a commercial press can do to enrich the craft by ransacking the treasure houses of the past and breathing into old bodies the living spirit of our day.

Here are a few specimen pages that serve as examples. Typography. . . . is a donation from our late friend Jerry Buff (1931-2025).

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A Wicked Wood Engraving Wednesday

Barry Moser

In 1985, heralded illustrator, wood engraver, book designer, and fine-press publisher Barry Moser (b. 1940) printed his edition of L. Frank Baum's (1856-1919) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (first published in 1900) at his Pennyroyal Press in West Hatfield, Massachusetts in a limited edition of 350 copies with 65 original wood engravings. In the early to mid 1980s, Moser had an arrangement with the University of California Press at Berkeley to publish several of his private press publications as trade editions. The images shown here are reproductions of Moser's original wood-engraved prints in the 1986 University of California Press edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the only UC Press Moser publication for which we do not have a corresponding Pennyroyal copy (we accept donations, however).

In his 1986 Checklist of Pennyroyal publications, Jeffery Dwyer, one of the co-founders with Barry Moser of The Hampshire Typothetae (1976-1977), quotes Moser on the making of these images:

Few texts lend themselves to contemporary parody as well as does the Wizard of Oz. The first time I tried my hand at political parody was in Through the Looking-Glass where I cast Richard M. Nixon as Humpty Dumpty. The Wizard of Oz gave me the stage for throwing humorous, but none-the-less serious darts at the Reagan Administration [including depicting the Wicked Witch as Nancy Reagan], corporate figureheads, and the so-called Moral Majority, who now, it seems, want to be called Freedom Federation.

Our copy is another donation from our late friend Jerry Buff (1931-2025).

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

Leonard Baskin

Today we present a few wood engravings by renowned artist Leonard Baskin (1922-2000) from Leonard Baskin The Graphic Work 1950-1970, published in New York by Far Gallery as part of its 35th anniversary celebration in 1970. Baskin, who with his founding of the Gehenna Press in 1942 was among the first American fine-art book printers, spent a good proportion of his professional life in the Northampton region of Western Massachusetts where he was a teacher, mentor, and inspiration to numerous American artists working today, especially in wood engraving, and as such was the dean of what we like to call the Pioneer Valley School of artists.

Death and the human condition are recurring themes in Baskin's work, as can be seen here. In his idiosyncratically formal, almost 18th-century style, Baskin remarked:

It is the special province of the Graphic Arts to be tendentious, to excoriate, attack and denounce (even rarely to praise), inventing scarifying images with specific and immediate purport.

The Graphic Works, one of many hundred of items donated by our late friend Jerry Buff (1931-2025), was designed by Leonard Baskin, typeset by the Stinehour Press, and printed at the Meriden Gravure Company.

View posts including some of the Pioneer Valley School artists.

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

ROBERT GIBBINGS

Irish wood engraver and fine press publisher Robert Gibbings (1889-1959) is noted for documenting his various perambulations in words and images. These images are from among 40 wood engravings Gibbings produced for his 1955 publication Trumpets from Montparnasse. We hold both the British (J. M. Dent & Sons) and American (E. P. Dutton & Co.) first editions.

The one-time owner of the Golden Cockerel Press, Gibbings was a voracious traveler and travel writer. Trumpets from Montparnasse was based on his travels in France and Italy, particularly the Île de Ré off the coast of La Rochelle, France, the lagoon city of Venice, Postino south of Naples, and of course Paris and the Montparnasse district itself. The book also includes eight color reproductions of his paintings.

Our British edition is a gift from our late friend Jerry Buff (1931-2025).

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

CLIFFORD WEBB

This week we present the four wood engravings by the English artist, illustrator, writer, and wood engraver Clifford Webb (1894–1972) in the Golden Cockerel Press 1936-1943 bibliography, Pertelote, A Sequel to Chanticleer, printed in London by the Press’s co-owners at the time, Christopher Sandford and Owen Rutter.

Clifford Webb was a favored illustrator for Golden Cockerel publications, illustrating eight books for the press. After serving in the British army during WWI, Webb studied at the Westminster School of Art from 1919 to 1922, after which he taught for a few years at Central School of Art in Birmingham. He established a reputation as one of the great wood engravers of the 20th century and developed a distinctive engraving style. Simon Brett (1943-2024), one of the great British wood engravers of the following generation, noted in his 2019 book on the life and work of Clifford Webb, that Webb "re-thought how things could be depicted on an engraved surface. He broke boundaries!”

The first image is one of four engravings Webb produced for the 1939 Golden Cockerel Press edition of The Country of the Blind by H. G. Wells. The next is one of six engravings for the 1937 edition of Ana the Runner by Patrick Miller, and the last two images are from the 1938 edition of The White Llama by Ventura García-Calderón, a translation of Calderón's La venganza del cóndor, with eight engravings by Webb.

Our copy of Pertelote is another donation from our late friend Jerry Buff (1931-2025).

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Typography Tuesday

Here are some more type specimens from the Pelican Press, founded in 1916 by British printer and activist Francis Meynell (1891-1975) – who also founded the more well-known Nonesuch Press in 1922 -- from the specimen book, Typography: Type Specimens … of the Pelican Press in London in the 1920s for the benefit of their customers “to assist the amateur to a right appreciation of type-forms.” It outlines the press’s typographic philosophy and agenda, its approach to style and presentation, and presents the type faces and ornaments it used.

The motto of the press was “Printing with a Purpose.” Meynell was a strong believer in fine-press publishing for every-day commercial ends. He applied this same philosophy to his more well-known imprint, Nonesuch Press, which he founded in London with his wife Vera Mendel and his business partner David Garnett in 1922.

Typography… . is a donation from our late friend Jerry Buff (1931-2025).

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

Lucien Pissarro

Lucien Pissarro (1863-1944), a French painter, printmaker, wood engraver, and fine press printer, was the son of the noted French Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro and his wife Julie Vellay. He was immersed in his father's Impressionist circle and followed him as a landscape painter. He seems to have turned to wood engraving after his second visit to England in 1884. He moved permanently to England in 1890, married English wood engraver Esther Bensusan (1870-1951) in 1892, founded the Eragny Press with his wife in 1894, running the fine press until 1914, and became a British citizen in 1916.

These wood engravings, following in the hybrid Art Nouveau/Arts and Crafts style of his influences, Charles Ricketts and William Morris, are from the 1974 book, The Gentle Art: A Collection of Books and Wood Engravings by Lucien Pissarro, compiled by art historian and bibliophile Geoffrey Perkins and printed in Zurich by L'Art Ancien in an edition of 350 copies.

Our copy, a gift from our late friend Jerry Buff (1931-2025), is from the collection of American rare-book dealer Doris Frohnsdorff (1933-2022) with her bookplate.

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

From 1953-1983, renowned American wood engraver John De Pol (1913-2004) produced illustrations for a series of thirty, privately-printed keepsakes on Benjamin Franklin (of which we hold thirteen). The images shown here are selections from the keepsakes, privately printed in a commemorative publication entitled Thirty, and published in connection with the celebration of Printing Week in New York in 1987.

Our copy is a gift from our late friend Jerry Buff (1931-2025) and bears John De Pol's signed presentation to him.

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