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Tag Archives: handpress

Curtis Census

10 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Publication

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American Indians, copper plates, Curtis Census, drawing, Edward Curtis, etchings, ethnography, field notes, French Impressionists, glass negative, glass positive, gravures, gum prints, handpress, J. Willard Marriott Library, Japanese handmade silk tissues, Mississippi, negatives, nineteenth century, painting, papers, photographer, photogravures, Pictorialism, platinotypes, printing process, rare books, rice paper, Scott Beadles, Seattle, sepia inks, Tim Greyhavens, Tissue, Van Gelder, vellum, watermark

Rare Books is pleased to announce the launch of the Curtis Census, a website produced by Tim Greyhavens for the global community. The J. Willard Marriott Library is one of the institutions that holds an entire set of Edward Curtis’ The North American Indian.

From Tim’s website: “Published by Edward Curtis from 1907 to 1930, The North American Indian was planned to be a limited edition of 500 sets. Due to the extremely high cost of the publication and the prolonged publication cycle, it’s thought that no more than 300 complete or partial sets were finally printed. This census will determine, as accurately as possible, the actual number of complete or partial sets that were printed and their present locations…Although The North American Indian is one of the great publications of all time, there is no definitive answer about how many sets were originally published. Curtis did not keep a master subscription list, and different documentation about the project provides conflicting information.”

Congratulations, Tim, on a great project.

Click here for the website’s biography of Edward Curtis. Curtis was born in 1868. 2018 is the 150th anniversary of his birth.

Click here for the website’s excellent article on Curtis’s The North American Indian.

Visit Rare Books to look at this remarkable set of photogravures.

THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN
Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952)
Seattle, WA: E. S. Curtis, 1907-30
E77 C97

A collection of 2,232 photogravures of American Indians taken between 1890 and 1930 and published between 1907 and 1930. A massive project, professional photographer Edward Curtis’ intention was to document every major tribe west of the Mississippi, portraying what he perceived to be a vanishing culture. While he was neither the first nor the last person to photograph the American Indian, he was surely the most prolific. His monumental publication presented to the public an extensive ethnographic study of numerous peoples.

The North American Indian consists of twenty portfolios of photogravures and twenty volumes of field notes bound with smaller gravures. A photogravure is made from a printing process utilizing a copper plate that is made from a glass positive which itself is made from a glass negative. The plate is hand wiped with sepia inks. Excess ink is removed and the plate is forced onto paper with a handpress, capturing all the etched details on the plate. The photogravure produces a soft, atmospheric appearance similar to that achieved by French Impressionist painters. This photographic process, along with drawing and painting on negatives, platinotypes and gum prints, was popular at the end of the nineteenth century. The movement, known as “Pictorialism” was a way for photographers to add personal vision and expression to their works.

The portfolio gravures were printed on three different papers, Van Gelder, a watermarked paper, Vellum, a rice paper, and Tissue, Japanese handmade silk tissues. Forty of the original sets were printed on Tissue, the rest equally split between Van Gelder and Vellum.

Images selected and scanned by Scott Beadles.

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We recommend – Fantasies & Hard Knocks

29 Friday May 2015

Posted by rarebooks in Recommended Reading

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Alabama, Anthony Burgess, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Biblioteca di via Senato, Book Arts Program at the University of Alabama, Brendan Gill, C. F. Cavafy, Cottondale, Dana Gioia, Ecuador, Ex Ophidia, Ex Ophidia Press, Fantasies & Hard Knocks, fine press, Fulvio Testa, handpress, Italo Calvino, Italy, J. Willard Marriott Library, Jack Spicer, John Cheever, Jorge Luis Borges, Milan, New York, Oregon, Paul Zweig, Plain Wrapper Press, Port Townsend, printers, Quito, R. B. Kitaj, rare books, Richard-Gabriel Rummonds, Rome, San Francisco, Special Collections, University of Utah, Verona

 




FANTASIES & HARD KNOCKS: MY LIFE AS A PRINTER
Richard-Gabriel Rummonds (b.1931)
Port Townsend, OR: Ex Ophidia Press, 2015

Richard-Gabriel Rummonds is recognized as one of the world’s pre-eminent handpress printers of the late twentieth century. For nearly twenty-five years, using the imprints of Plain Wrapper Press and Ex Ophidia, he printed and published illustrated limited editions of contemporary literature on iron handpresses, primarily in Verona, Italy and Cottondale, Alabama. Rummonds’ work has been exhibited in Rome, New York, and San Francisco. In 1999, a retrospective exhibition of his work was held at the Biblioteca di via Senato in Milan, Italy. His books are held in museums, libraries and private collections worldwide.

Rummonds was appointed founding director of the MFA in the Book Arts Program at the University of Alabama in 1984. He has taught workshops around the world, including the University of Utah.

Fantasies & Hard Knocks, “embellished with over 450 images [most in color] and 65 recipes,” is a candid autobiography chronicling the printing and publishing of Rummonds’ pieces issued with Plain Wrapper Press and Ex Ophidia imprints.

In 1966, Rummonds founded Plain Wrapper Press in Quito, Ecuador, moving it to Verona, Italy in 1970, where he mastered his craft on nineteenth-century handpresses and established a worldwide reputation for excellent fine press productions. In 1982, Rummonds established Ex Ophidia in Cottondale, Alabama.

pg568-569spread

His memoir is filled with deeply personal anecdotes of working closely with many of the most acclaimed and renowned authors and artists of the time, including Jorge Luis Borges, Anthony Burgess, Italo Calvino, C. F. Cavafy, John Cheever, Brendan Gill, Dana Gioia, Jack Spicer, Paul Zweig, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Fulvio Testa, R. B. Kitaj and others.

pg746-747spread

Rare Books, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library holds a significant archive of the works, library, and ephemera of Richard-Gabriel Rummonds.

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