October 19th, 2015, by Megan Cooper

The 40th annual American Printing History Association Conference is just days away and the curators from RIT’s Cary Graphic Arts Collection are excited to host the event this year. The conference themed “Printing on the Handpress and Beyond,” is full of workshops, lectures, tours, and more. It will start on Thursday, October 22nd and end with the presentation of the Goudy Award for Excellence in Typography on Saturday, October 24th at 7pm.

The American Printing History Association started in 1974 and has held their annual conference at different institutions all over the country each year. RIT Cary Collection has been an active participant at the conferences and within the association for many years. Cary curator emeritus, David Pankow, contributed as the editor of the association’s scholarly journal, Printing History, and current associate curator, Amelia Hugill-Fontanel, is a trustee of APHA and secretary of the Upstate New York Chapter. The Cary Collection previously hosted the conference in 2000 with the theme, On the Digital Brink, and is eager to bring new workshops and presentations centered on the history of the handpress to the conference this year.

Curators Steven Galbraith and Amelia Hugill-Fontanel decided on the conference theme of handpress printing because they “had acquired the famous Kelmscott-Goudy Albion handpress that was owned by William Morris, the father of the Arts and Crafts movement. It was also owned by great American type designer, Frederic W. Goudy.”

The conference will look to the history of these printing machines but also examine the contemporary teaching and artwork that are being made on these kinds of presses. It’s meant to be a conference where printers and scholars can come together around our interests in printing history.

– Amelia Hugill-Fontanel

The registration for the full conference is closed now, but there are free events that students might find interesting. These events include:

• 10/22 @ 4:30 pm reception at the Cary Collection
• 10/23 @ 12-4 pm book art vendors in the Wallace Center
• 10/24 @ 7 pm presentation of the Goudy Award for Excellence in Typography in the Carlson Auditorium

The presentation of the Goudy Award has been an RIT tradition for 28 years. It is an award that recognizes a person who has made a significant contribution in type design. It was established in 1969 and the first person to receive this award was Hermann Zapf, famous book and type designer of over sixty typefaces since 1940.

This year it will be presented to Jerry Kelly who studied under Hermann Zapf at RIT in the 1970s. Kelly is a teacher and writer as well as a calligrapher, book designer, type designer, and typographer. His studies on the history of calligraphy and printing have won him many awards.

Other features of the conference this year include printing on the presses in the Cary Collection; the keynote address by Alix Christie who will speak about her book Gutenberg’s Apprentice; and bus tours to Skaneateles, NY to see the Bixlers Letterfoundry. In Christie’s talk, attendees will listen to a detailed description of how Johann Gutenberg started a print shop in 15th century Germany. On the bus tour, visitors will have the opportunity to meet the owners of the foundry, Michael and Winifred Bixler. Both are alumni of the RIT School of Printing (now the School of Media Sciences). Visitors will be able to see the metal casting operation that supplies letterpress printers around the country.

It is an exciting week for the Cary Graphic Arts Collection and the School of Media Sciences. It is a much-anticipated event for all attending. Hugill-Fontanel said, “We are delighted to host the 40th annual APHA conference and highlight the great resources that RIT has to offer.”