The Eragny Press: Selections from the Robert Grabhorn Collection

Robert Browning, Some Poems [cover detail] Eragny Press, 1904; press mark, 1900-1914; Charles Perrault, Histoire de Peau d'Ane [cover detail] Eragny Press 1902.

The Marjorie G. and Carl W. Stern Book Arts & Special Collections Center presents this exhibition which celebrates San Francisco printer Robert Grabhorn’s love of books, his skill as a collector, and our good fortune to have acquired his collection fifty-two years ago. Grabhorn’s large personal library of books is related to the history of printing and the development of the book. It includes thirty of the thirty-two Eragny Press books which were printed by Lucien and Esther Pissarro. The San Francisco Public Library proudly presents a selection of these exceptional books in this exhibit.

The Beginning 
The Eragny Press was founded in London in 1894 by Lucien Pissarro (1863-1944) and his wife Esther (1870-1951). It was named for the village in France where Lucien had lived with his family. 

Lucien was the eldest son of the famous painter Camille Pissarro. With his father encouraging his artistic talent and his mother arguing for a more pragmatic path, he traveled from France to London in 1890 in hopes of establishing a career. He was a talented artist, had been studying wood engraving with Auguste-Louis Lepère, and knew of the English revival of wood engraving. He arrived just as the Kelmscott Press and the private press movement was emerging. 

In London, the young Frenchman met and developed an important relationship with the artistic and multi-talented Charles Ricketts who had just founded the art journal The Dial (1889). Ricketts was fluent in French, had a strong interest in wood engraving and printmaking, and was able to introduce Lucien to London’s cultural life which included people like William Rossetti, Walter Crane, Oscar Wilde, and Emery Walker (whose lecture Letterpress Printing and Illustration had inspired William Morris in 1888.) Lucien’s relationship with Ricketts was integral to the founding of the Eragny Press. 

C'est d'Aucassin et de Nicolete, [cover] Eragny Press, 1903

However, it was his relationship with Esther Bensusan that transformed an idea into a working press. They married in London in 1892, against the wishes of her prosperous merchant father, and began work on their bohemian plan to print and publish books which would be the perfect vehicle for Lucien’s beautiful wood engravings. 

Artist-Printers Take On The Industrial Arts 
Lucien was a painter and engraver, however, and not a printer. Esther was neither but proved to be a quick study and dedicated worker. Together they taught themselves how to be printers and publishers. Of course, they owned no equipment and had to start their enterprise from scratch. They bought a printing press and good paper. But they needed type in order to print. And they were poor. 

Francois Villon, Les Ballades, Eragny Press, 1900

Ricketts’s Vale Type 
In 1894, the same year that Lucien and Esther were establishing the Eragny Press, Charles Ricketts was establishing his own: the Vale Press. He, however, had access to money from an inheritance which enabled him to outfit his shop. The Pissarros accepted Ricketts’s offer of the use of his Vale type which enabled them to print type along with their engravings. The prolific Ricketts printed until 1904 when he closed his press: which meant the end, for the Pissarros, of the use of the Vale type. At that point Lucien became a typographer and designed his own. He named it “Brook” type, after the home where he and Esther had lived since 1902. 

Margaret Rust, The Queen of the Fishes, Eragny Press, 1984

The Books 
Their first book in 1894, The Queen of the Fishes, has beautiful color wood engravings and featured Lucien’s handwritten text which was reproduced from blocks. Their second book, The Book of Ruth and Esther (1896), along with the next fourteen, were printed with Vale type. The last sixteen were printed with Lucien’s Brook type. In total, they produced thirty-two books over twenty years, between 1894-1914.

Francois Villon, Les ballades de maistre [cover] Eragny Press, 1900

The Pissarros did not bind their own books. Instead, they used the bindery firm J.J. Leighton, Son, and Hodges. The Pissarros complained about the acidic boards the bindery used which stained their beautiful decorated paper covers.This discoloration remains visible today. 

The books were intended to showcase Lucien’s wood engravings. That fact probably affected their choice in subject matter which was primarily folk tales, legends, music, and poetry. John Milton’s Areopagitica, their largest book, stands out from the rest and suggests a broadening of focus. Approximately half of their books are in the French language pointing to the Pissarro’s wondering if the Eragny Press might have been more successful had it been established in France instead of England. 

T. Sturge Moore, A Brief Account of the Origin of the Eragny Press [cover] 1903

Unsung Heroes 
Unlike some of their peers who were gentlemen printers, the Eragny Press was not privately supported by wealthy donors. Lucien and Esther were artist-printers, perhaps naive, and definitely not businesslike. They hoped sales and subscriptions would support their small business. But they also consistently undervalued their own work and underestimated their expenses.

Camille Pissarro’s financial support was absolutely instrumental in keeping them housed, fed, and the press running. His death in 1903 was not only a devastating personal loss, it was a financial loss for Eragny Press. 

Riquet à la Houppe, wood engraving, Eragny Press, 1907

Wives are often unsung heroes -- and Esther’s role in the Eragny Press has to be seen as an equal partnership. She was a good match for Lucien: assertive and independent in contrast to Lucien’s quiet manner. She learned on the job and became a skilled engraver. She is credited with the design and engraving of many of the initial letters that were used and is believed to have created the botanical designs for some of the beautiful decorated papers used on the books’ covers. Her effort kept the press going through Lucien’s long illness between the years 1897-1899. 

Riquet à la Houppe, wood engraving detail designed by Lucien and engraved by Esther, Eragny Press, 1907

Eragny Press’s Beautiful Books 
The Pissarros lacked any business sense, they were always short of funds, and in the end their press was never profitable. They were also perfectionists which complicated matters. But their youthful enthusiasm propelled them. Their artistic talent and generous spirit were the perfect combination to create their small, consistently beautiful, and uniquely special books. 

Lucien and Esther Pissarro produced books of great originality and charm -- books one “would want to keep as friends.” Indeed, Eragny Press, was “like no other...and nobody could more thoroughly have identified…with the working ideals of a private press.”*

Émile Moselly, La Charrue d'érable, wood engraving, Eragny Press, 1912

 

* *W.S. Meadmore, from Colin Franklin’s, The Private Presses

Further Reading:

The Book Art of Lucien Pissarro by Lora Urbanelli, Publishers Group West, 1997

ABrief Account of the Origin of the Eragny Press by T. Sturge Moore, Eragny Press, 1903

TheGentle Art compiled by Geoffrey Perkins, L'Art Ancien, 1974

AHistory of the Eragny Press, 1894-1914 by Marcella Genz, Oak Knoll, 2004

Illustratingthe Good Life by Alice H.R.H. Beckwith, Grolier Club, 2007

Lucien Pissarro : un Coeur Simple by W.S. Meadmore, Constable & Company, 1962

Noteson the Eragny Press, edited by Alan Fern, Cambridge University Press, 1957

The Private Press by Roderick Cave, R.R. Bowker, 1983

The Private Presses by Colin Franklin, Studio Vista, 1969