Typographic Surprises! 26.02.2021

First of the Typographic Surprises! webinar series organised by Printing Historical Society. An online event not to be missed.

Dr Alexandra Franklin

A surprising journey to the third dimension

Librarians make every effort to keep things flat. When is it OK to go 3D? We will take a behind-the-scenes and inside-the-lines look at often-neglected collections of printing surfaces in one library, the Bodleian in Oxford. These testify to the three-dimensional history and nature of the printed page.

Alexandra is Co-ordinator of the Bodleian Libraries Centre for the Study of the Book and the Bodleian Bibliographical Press. She is the author of 'Woodcuts,' in Book Parts (2019) and of 'Casting Off: a journey in five starts,' in the journal Inscription 1, 2020.

Patrick Goossens

What came after punch cutting

At the outset of printing in the west, it is (almost) generally accepted that type was made via a steel punch driven in a copper matrix. The advent of the nineteenth, with its hankering for speed, efficiency and de-skilling, brought new technologies to the old trade. Pantographic punch and matrix cutting were one of them. Patrick will take us inside his Antwerp engraving room for a look at some of the different punch and matrix engraving equipment he has gathered over the last decades with a brief explanation and demonstration of the processes.

Born in Antwerp, the home-town of the Plantin-Moretus Museum, Patrick studied history at the University Antwerp and Louvain. Mesmerised by the Museum’s press room he started to collect and research historical printing and typecasting equipment. This collection has allowed him to research the tangible and intangible sides of printing history for his ongoing doctoral thesis on the dissemination of innovative printing technology in the nineteenth century, focusing on Belgium. Patrick has presented some of his preliminary findings, worldwide.

Martin Killeen

What is the use of a book without pictures?

This presentation will provide some perspectives on the illustration of early printed books including a brief comparison of the relatively few illustrated books of native literature published in England before 1700 compared to Continental Europe, especially Italy.

Martin Killeen, recently retired Rare Books Librarian at the Cadbury Research Library, spent more than thirty years exploiting the rich resources of the repository (printed books, archives and manuscripts) to support teaching, learning and research across all the disciplines within the University and beyond. This included delivering talks and presentations and using original materials to lead seminars and classes (which often cover themes relating to print and publishing history and physical bibliography). Martin also publishes papers based on the Cadbury Research Library's holdings.

Date And Time
Fri, 26 February 2021
19:00 – 21:00 CET
Register (free) - link

Reverting to Type 2020: Protest Posters

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This winter, New North Press is holding an exhibition of letterpress artworks with something to say. Marking 10 years since the last Reverting to Type exhibition, 2020’s show will be of letterpress protest posters. As before, this will be an international exhibition showcasing progressive letterpress artwork from presses around the world, alongside the work of students and specially-invited collaborators. I’m proud to have two of my works selected for this exhibition and I wish I could attend the opening.

Exhibition launch
3 December 2020
Live-streamed broadcast on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook

Exhibition dates
4 December 2020 – 29 January 2021 (restrictions allowing)

Location
Standpoint Gallery
45 Coronet Street
London N1 6HD
UK

David Armes & Andrew Honey. Webinar about printing and paper from The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities. 23.06.2020

What’s beneath the words: a paper journey
Contemporary letterpress artist David Armes (Red Plate Press) and book conservator Andrew Honey (Bodleian Libraries) share their appreciation for paper and for the craft and art that goes into the making of books. Armes explains how he printed a new book on 'Oxford India Paper,' very thin but opaque paper used to print Bibles, encyclopaedias, and other lengthy works. The resulting work, Curses, exploits the paper's unique qualities. Find out how demanding this was, and hear about Armes's printing residency in Oxford, where he created the work 'Between Sun Turns,' a response to the environment and cityscape in and around the city. It has been thought that ‘Oxford India paper’ was locally produced at the Wolvercote Paper Mill; Andrew Honey discusses this idea, and reveals other historical paper research taking place at the Bodleian.

June 23, 2020. 03:00 PM (London time, BST) = 10:00 AM EDT
To register: link

Speakers:
David Armes is an artist working with print, language and geography. His work is frequently site-specific and considers how sense and experience of place can be represented. He works primarily with letterpress printing on paper and, through using what was once an industrial process, he is interested in where the multiple meets the unique, where the ephemeral meets the archival. The final work varies in form and size from small chapbooks to large hanging scroll installations. He travels frequently for residencies and worked as artist-in-residence at Bodleian Libraries at University of Oxford (2019), Zygote Press fine art printmaking studio, Ohio (2018), BBC Radio Lancashire (2017) and Huddersfield Art Gallery (2016). He has recently shown work in the USA, UK and Germany, and was shortlisted for the 2017 Flourish Excellence in Printmaking award.

Andrew Honey is a book conservator at the Bodleian Libraries with a teaching and research role. He has recently completed the conservation and rebinding of the Winchester Bible and is the conservation advisor to The Mappa Mundi Trust. He has wide interests in the materiality of rare books and manuscripts, and a particular interest in historic paper. His paper research has ranged from the writing papers used by Jane Austen (Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscripts, Oxford 2018) to the faults found in the Shakespeare’s First Folio (‘Torn, wrinkled, stained, and otherwise naughty sheets’ – how should we interpret paper faults in seventeenth-century paper? link).

text source
Centre for the Study of the Book. Bodleian Library
University of Oxford