Lithography Challenges Letterpress!

Louis Flader’s Achievement in Photo-Engraving and Letter-Press Printing, 1927, American Photo-Engravers Association, c1927 and The Art of Photo Engraving, Sterling Engraving Company, 1929.

The Marjorie G. and Carl W. Stern Book Arts & Special Collections Center at the San Francisco Public Library and the American Printing History Association (APHA) presents Reproductive Arts in America: Lithography Challenges Letterpress an illustrated talk by David Pankow on Saturday, July 20th at 2pm in the Koret Auditorium of the Main Library.

Louis Flader. Achievement in Photo-Engraving and Letter-Press Printing 1927. American Photo-Engravers Association, c1927.

This talk will focus on the rivalry that developed during the 20th century between letterpress and offset lithography and how proponents of each process tried to capture the market for commercial color printing. Beginning with a comparative tour of two lavishly produced and illustrated promotional publications -- Achievement in Photo-Engraving and Letter-press Printing (1927) and Litho-Media (1939) -- the talk will continue with a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of each process in “selling” an image to the viewer. In other words, what effects did detail, color gamut, tonality, paper, etc. have on an audience’s perception and/or preference for one process vs. the other? The talk will also include a review of the technical/economic factors that helped photoengraving maintain its edge for so many years.

Louis Flader. Achievement in Photo-Engraving and Letter-Press Printing 1927. American Photo-Engravers Association, c1927.

David Pankow has recently retired as curator of the Melbert B. Cary, Jr. Graphic Arts Collection at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York. The Cary Collection is a comprehensive library of original resources on printing and bookmaking history, graphic arts processes, and typographic exemplars. It also includes extensive manuscript and artifact holdings, as well as the Graphic Design Archive, which preserves the work of significant 20th-century American graphic designers. 

Louis Flader. Achievement in Photo-Engraving and Letter-Press Printing 1927. American Photo-Engravers Association, c1927.

The APHA’s annual Lieberman Lecture commemorates J. Ben Lieberman (1914–1984), founder and first president of the American Printing History Association. The lecture is a moveable feast, given at a different institution each year, by a figure distinguished in the history of printing or the book arts. Past Lieberman Lectures held locally have included Betsy Davids at The Book Club of California in 2010, Richard-Gabriel Rummonds at USF in 2005, and Jack Stauffacher with Matthew Carter at the Getty Center in Los Angeles in 2002. You can find out more about APHA at their website.

Litho-Media : a Demonstration of the Selling Power of Lithography. Litho-media, Inc., 1939.

And please mark your calendar for Saturday, August 10^th when The Northern California Chapter of APHA will be holding an organizational meeting at 6 pm at the San Francisco Center for the Book. It will be followed by a conversation between City College of San Francisco's legendary letterpress instructor Bob Pinetti and grendl löfkvist entitled Hot to Cold Type at 7pm. All are invited to attend.