Industry | Fine book publishing |
---|---|
Predecessors | Grabhorn Press M&H Type |
Founded | 1974 |
Founder | Andrew Hoyem |
Headquarters | San Francisco, California , |
Website | arionpress |
Arion Press is an American book publishing company in San Francisco. Founded in San Francisco in 1974, it publishes limited-edition books illustrated by notable artists using letterpress equipment dating to the 1910s. [1]
Michael Kimmelman of The New York Times wrote in 2006 that Arion Press "carries on a grand legacy of San Francisco printers and bookmakers." [2] It was founded by Andrew Hoyem, continuing the tradition of the Grabhorn Press of Edwin and Robert Grabhorn. Hoyem had been partners for seven years with the younger Grabhorn brother, and after his death started Arion Press, preserving the Grabhorns' historic collection of American metal type. [3] [4] In 1989 Arion acquired M&H Type, which like Graborn had been established in San Francisco in the 1910s, [1] and constitutes the oldest and largest hot metal type foundry in the U.S. for letterpress printers. [5] M&H's collection of antique type is the second largest in the United States, after that of the Smithsonian Institution, [1] and is used by other small presses in addition to Arion. [6] The press's nonprofit branch, the Grabhorn Institute, was designated in 2001 by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as part of "the nation's irreplaceable historical and cultural legacy" under its Save America's Treasures program. [7]
In 2001, Arion Press leased space in a former laundry in the Presidio. [8] In 2024, it moved to the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture. The press has a gallery and offers tours. [1] Hoyem retired in 2018. As of 2024 [update] , Blake Riley is lead printer and creative director. [1]
The press publishes up to four books each year, in limited editions of as few as 250. [1] Most are reprints of literary works illustrated with original prints from prominent artists. The livre d'artiste series, launched in 1982, includes James Joyce's Ulysses illustrated with etchings by Robert Motherwell, the poetry of W. B. Yeats illustrated with etchings by Richard Diebenkorn, Jean Toomer's Cane illustrated with woodblock prints by Martin Puryear, and the poetry of Wallace Stevens illustrated by Jasper Johns. In 1979 it published a multi-volume edition of Moby-Dick on hand-made paper, illustrated with wood engravings by Barry Moser, which took 14 months to print; [1] in 2006 in the San Francisco Chronicle John King characterized this and Arion's publications pairing comtemporary poets and artists as "among the most exquisitely printed books in the world". [8] In 2003, the Minneapolis Star Tribune described Arion as "the nation's leading publisher of fine-press books". [9]
In 2000, in celebration of the new millennium, Arion Press published a lectern edition of the Bible in 400 exemplars, which took two years to print. [9] [10] [11] For its fifty-year anniversary in 2024, it is issuing Aesop's Fables with updated morals by Daniel Handler and illustrations by 15 artists. The presentation box by Kiki Smith illustrates "Belling the Cat", with a cast metal mouse sculpture and hidden bells. [1]
Arion Press books are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Huntington Library, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the British Library, among others. Two of the Press's books were honored among the one hundred great books of the 20th Century in the 1994 Museum of Modern Art exhibition One Hundred Years of Artists Books. [12]
Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed technique, rather than a photographic reproduction of a visual artwork which would be printed using an electronic machine ; however, there is some cross-over between traditional and digital printmaking, including risograph.
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The earliest known form of printing evolved from ink rubbings made on paper or cloth from texts on stone tablets, used during the sixth century. Printing by pressing an inked image onto paper appeared later that century. Later developments in printing technology include the movable type invented by Bi Sheng around 1040 and the printing press invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. The technology of printing played a key role in the development of the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution and laid the material basis for the modern knowledge-based economy and the spread of learning to the masses.
Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing for producing many copies by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against individual sheets of paper or a continuous roll of paper. A worker composes and locks movable type into the "bed" or "chase" of a press, inks it, and presses paper against it to transfer the ink from the type, which creates an impression on the paper.
Valenti Angelo (1897-1982) was an Italian-American printmaker, illustrator and author, born June 23, 1897, in Massarosa, Italy. He immigrated to the United States, living first in New York City then settling in Antioch, California. At the age of nineteen, Angelo moved to San Francisco, working by day as a labourer and spending his evenings and weekends at libraries and museums. He soon became a versatile artist and an especially skilled engraver and printer. Angelo's favoured medium was the linocut, and his prints depicting urban nocturnes and desert scenes of the American Southwest are particularly coveted by collectors and dealers. In 1926, Angelo made his first book illustrations for the well-known, San Francisco-based Grabhorn Press.
Peter and Donna Thomas are American papermakers, book artists, and authors. They travel across the United States in their self-constructed gypsy wagon, educating others about the book arts and teaching workshops in communities throughout the country. They are co-authors of three commercially published books and have created over 100 limited edition, handcrafted books. Their work has been shown at universities, libraries, galleries, and museums around the world.
Auerhahn Press was a publishing company in San Francisco between 1959 and 1965, founded by printer-poet Dave Haselwood. The company published many key poets of the San Francisco Renaissance.
Jack Werner Stauffacher was an American printer, typographer, educator, and fine book publisher. He owned and operated Greenwood Press, a small book printing press based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Andrew Lewison Hoyem is a typographer, letterpress printer, publisher, poet, and preservationist. He is the founder and was the director of Arion Press in San Francisco until his retirement in October 2018. Arion Press "is considered the nation's leading publisher of fine-press books," according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Arion Press "carries on a grand legacy of San Francisco printers and bookmakers," according to Michael Kimmelman of The New York Times. Hoyem’s work in preserving the nation’s last typefoundry has been recognized by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The Grabhorn Institute is a nonprofit organization formed in October 2000 for the purpose of preserving and continuing the operation of one of the last integrated facilities for typefounding, letterpress printing, and bookbinding in the fine press tradition, as a living museum and educational and cultural center. It is named in honor of the brothers Edwin and Robert Grabhorn, who established the Grabhorn Press in San Francisco in 1920. The press was "one of the foremost producers of finely printed books in twentieth-century America." The Grabhorn Press Building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in San Francisco, California.
Albert Maurice Bender was a German-Irish-American art collector who was one of the leading patrons of the arts in San Francisco in the 1920s and 1930s. He played a key role in the early career of Ansel Adams and was one of Diego Rivera's first American patrons. By providing financial assistance to artists, writers, and institutions, he had a significant impact on the cultural development of the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.
Print design, a subset of graphic design, is a form of visual communication used to convey information to an audience through intentional aesthetic design printed on a tangible surface, designed to be printed on paper, as opposed to presented on a digital platform. A design can be considered print design if its final form was created through an imprint made by the impact of a stamp, seal, or dye on the surface of the paper.
Finlay Press is the name of an independent private press founded by Ingeborg Hansen and Phil Day (artist). It began production in Goulburn, NSW, Australia in 1997. In 2001 the press moved to Braidwood, New South Wales, Australia, where it printed its final publication in 2009.
Richard Wagener is an American wood engraver known for his prints and fine press books. His work has been collected by over one hundred and thirty public institutions. His first livre d'artiste, Zebra Noise with a Flatted Seventh, was included in Artists' Books in the Modern Era, 1870–2000 at the Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Victoria Dailey has called Wagener the first California artist since Paul Landacre to achieve prominence in the art of wood engraving.
Jane Bissell Grabhorn (1911–1973) was an American artist, typographer, bookbinder, and printer.
Felicia Rice is an American book artist, typographer, letterpress printer, fine art publisher, and educator. She lectures and exhibits internationally, and her books can be found in collections from Special Collections, Cecil H. Green Library to the Whitney Museum of American Art to the Bodleian Library. Work from the Press is included in exhibitions and collections both nationally and internationally, and has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants.
Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. is an American printer, book artist and papermaker best known for social and political commentary, particularly in printed posters. One critic noted that Kennedy is "...unafraid of asking uncomfortable questions about race and artistic pretension."
The Gehenna Press was one of the earliest limited edition fine arts presses in the United States. Established in 1942 by sculptor and graphic artist Leonard Baskin (1922-2000) while still a student at Yale, the award-winning press went on to publish approximately 200 books in nearly 60 years, finally ceasing operation shortly after Baskin's death in 2000, which also makes it one of the longest-lived small presses in the U.S. The Press is known for its imaginative printing, use of type, binding and book illustration, as well as its collaborative work with several key 20th-century poets, including the United Kingdom's Poet Laureate Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and, posthumously, James Baldwin. Over the years, the Gehenna's work was widely exhibited in both museums and library collections, and its books are in public collections both in the U.S. and abroad. In 1995, Baskin and his work with the Press were recognized by the Library of Congress with a solo retrospective, the first for a living artist in its history."
David Ruff (1925-2007) was an American painter and print maker.
Master printmakers or master printers are specialized technicians who hand-print editions of works of an artist in printmaking. Master printmakers often own and/or operate their own printmaking studio or print shop. Business activities of a Master printshop may include: publishing and printing services, educational workshops or classes, mentorship of artists, and artist residencies.
Peter Rutledge Koch, also known simply as Peter Koch is an American letterpress master printer, artists' book maker and publisher, typographer, educator, author and book designer. Koch is internationally known for his fine press artists' books. Over the years he has published under a variety of imprints, including Black Stone Press; Peter and the Wolf Editions; Editions Koch; Hormone Derange Editions; and Peter Koch Printer and The REAL LEAD Saloon.