Thorowgood & Co.

THOROWGOOD [(W.)] & Co. Specimen of Printing Types. Fann Street, London, n.d. [price list dated 1st Jan. 1840]. 8vo. 25cm. 2 leaves of prelims (title, price list) & 173 leaves of specimens (5 folding) printed one side only. Some marginal worming, one leaf frayed and grubby, otherwise clean and bright with all tissue guards intact. Orig. brown cloth, a little soiled and worn, rebacked. Includes the originals of the types later revived as Thorne Shaded and Thorowgood Italic. SOLD

Some line blocks from designs by Berthold Wolpe (5)

Monday the 4th December was the last day of the Monotype-sponsored 'The Wolpe Collection' exhibition at the Type Archive and I was determined to see it before it closed. The show was occasioned by the release of new, digital versions of Albertus, Pegasus, Sachsenwald, and Fanfare and Tempest Titling, 'remastered' by Toshi Omagari of the Monotype Studio. Exhibits included some fascinating and unfamiliar photos of Rudolf Koch's Offenbach Werkstatt, of which Wolpe was a member in the 1920s, several splendid examples of his artwork for Faber dust-jackets, and some of the original 12" drawings for Albertus, made in the Monotype Drawing Office in the 1930s.
 

  Two items caught my eye in relation to the Oxford printer Vivian Ridler's collection of Wolpe line blocks, the subject of my forthcoming book. The first was artwork for the dust-jacket of Walter de la Mare's Collected Poems (1942) for which Wolpe made also twelve drawings as decorations, which are featured in my book. The other was original artwork for the Wolpes' New Year's Card for 1942, the line block of which is among the Ridler collection. Unfortunately it was too badly corroded to print from, but the image appears in the V. & A. catalogue, Berthold Wolpe: A restrospective survey, entry 152.

   Some book decorations by Berthold Wolpe, discovered in a collection of line blocks belonging to his friend Vivian Ridler is published by S.P.Tuohy in association with the Perpetua Press, Oxford, and is due to appear early in 2018. It is crown octavo (185 x 123mm), 40pp, printed in 10/12pt Monotype Bell on Zerkall mouldmade paper by the Evergreen Press and bound in full cloth by Ludlow Bookbinders. The edition is limited to 250 copies and is priced at £35 pre-publication, £38 thereafter. Orders should be sent to: S.P.Tuohy, 45 Warwick Street, Oxford, OX4 1SZ. Email: sptuohy@hotmail.com.

Anthony Froshaug

FROSHAUG (Anthony) [Designer] Ulm, 1-11. Vierteljahresbericht der Hochschule fur Gestaltung, Ulm / Quarterly bulletin... / Bulletin trimestriel...Ulm, October 1958 - May 1964. 9 vols (of 14 in all) comprising 11 numbers (of 21 in all, 1958-68). The first five vols were designed and seen through the press by Froshaug and have a distinctive format, 28 x 30cm, the other vols being A4. Ulm 4 is devoted to his article 'Visual methodology'. See Froshaug, Typography & texts, Hyphen Press, 2000, pp.63-65, 115-28. V.g. SOLD

Some line blocks from designs by Berthold Wolpe (4)

Decoration from Walter de la Mare, Collected Poems, 1942, title-page & p.135

The book I've put together from the collection of line blocks featured in my posts of 13th and 15th July and the 25th August 2016 is now in active production and should be published early next year.

The title is Some book decorations by Berthold Wolpe, discovered in a collection of line blocks belonging to his friend Vivian Ridler and it is published, with an introduction and notes, by S.P. Tuohy in association with The Perpetua Press, Oxford. 

Limited to 250 copies. Crown octavo (185 x 123mm). 40pp. set in 10/12pt ‘Monotype’ Bell and printed letterpress on Zerkall mouldmade paper by the Evergreen Press and case-bound in full cloth by Ludlow Bookbinders.

The principal contents are sets of decorations Wolpe made for two books published early in his long career as a designer in the production department of Faber & Faber: Walter de la Mare’s Collected Poems (1942) and a cookery book by F. Le Mesurier, Sauces, French and English (1947). Adding a number of new details to the established record, a concise introduction explores the background to the drawings and traces the formation in the late 1930s and early 40s of the personal and professional network, based on the London publishing house, which lay behind a lasting friendship in printing and book production.

Price: £38 (£35 pre-publication). Trade terms: one third. Postage extra at cost.

Orders to: S.P. Tuohy, 45 Warwick Street, Oxford OX4 1SZ, UK.

'English sauces', from F. Le Mesurier, Sauces, French and English, 1947

Bawden in Portugal

BAWDEN (Edward) Four prints from Bawden’s Portuguese series of linocuts first published in ‘Bawden in Portugal’, Motif, no.9, 1962, pp.19-30, comprising ‘Obidos’ (image area 30 x 32cm), ‘Lamego’ (28.5 x 39cm), ‘Beja’ (30.5 x 44cm) and ‘Evora’ (30 x 40cm). Printed in black and two or three colours. Individual prints laid down on board and framed. Paper sunned throughout but the inks fast save for the grey in ‘Beja’ which has faded significantly. A few old and unobtrusive damp-stains. A most attractive group. These are almost certainly not original linocuts but proofs of the prints as they appeared in Motif, printed from sets of line blocks. Bawden gave the original designs to the National Gallery of Scotland in the 1980s. £150

Shell peepshow

FREEDMAN (Barnett) In winter & in summer you can be sure of Shell. London: Vincent Brooks, Day & Son, n.d. [c.1935]. 145 x 236mm. Seven-fold concertina peepshow diorama, chromolithographed throughout. A few small unobtrusive repairs. A very good copy which has been preserved in a custom-made clamshell box. Rare in this condition. Sold.

Harpel's Typograph

HARPEL (Oscar H.) Typograph, or book of specimens, containing useful information, suggestions and a collection of letterpress job printing. Printed and published by the author, Cincinnati, 1870. 8vo. Pp.252. 11 plates & 19 other inset specimens, some folding, some printed in several colours + 15pp. ‘Advertisers’ Addenda’. Lacks two leaves of text, pp.3-6, and plate 1 (monochrome specimen of wood-engraving). A few small tears and one long closed tear (affecting folding plate). Orig. brown cloth stamped in gilt and black. Corners a little worn. Inner front joint cracked. Binding of first few leaves tender. Good. The original primer of late Victorian ‘artistic’ printing. Scarce.