The Hesterberg Press printed a delightful series of keepsakes in recent years. Well designed, using good type together with a carefully chosen block, they were produced largely for the benefit of ‘The Typocrafters’.
William Hesterberg explores Bewicks fascination with gravestones and their inevitable decay in his book called: A Frail Memorial, published under the Cherryburn Press imprint, Chicago 1975. Limited to 100 copies; the frontispiece print is from the block used at p28 of Aesops Fables.
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The Hesterberg Press printed a delightful series of keepsakes in recent years. Well designed, using good type together with a carefully chosen block, they were produced largely for the benefit of ‘The Typocrafters’. |
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It seems inevitable, that over the years, blocks from Ben Abramson’s original purchase will be dispersed widely across America. Many have been pressed into service for bookplates, Christmas cards and Keepsake’s. For example, Louise and Greer Allen’s Christmas keepsake, Cherryburn Press, 1952: the Race Horse block. Three Prints From Cherryburn, Caxton Club 1968, with some lines by Paul Standard:
A proportion of the twenty or so American institutions, listed as buyers by Abramson, felt able to respond to recent enquiry's about the fate of their blocks. Among these The Newberry Library, as shown previously, is foremost with their publishing ventures. The Free Library of Philadelphia still have their five blocks; unused since acquisition. That is, apart from the Cirl Bunting which appeared on note cards in the 1960s. Whilst searching, the Free Library found they also had the six Little Red Riding Hood blocks. (Boyd p.19).10 The Metropolitan Museum of Art N.Y. has six, Brooklyn Museum three. Two Aesops Fables blocks belong to the Special Collections Library at the University of Michigan. The John Crerar Library merged with the University of Chicago Library in 1985 bringing eighteen blocks to the Department of Special Collections. These joined a mixed bag of six blocks originating from the University’s Art department in the 1970s. Known as the Epstein Archive, one of these a 1955 purchase is Bewick’s signature from the Water Birds preface.
Northwestern University Library has a nice group, notably most of the Ferriss blocks. The University of Kansas also gained large numbers from the hasty 1955 dispersal - about forty in total. Inevitably, bit by bit, diverse institutional curators are likely to gain by bequest or donation:
‘In 1995 she, [Deborah Benson Covington] was contacted by the Curator of Graphic Arts at the Smithsonian in Washington. A retired USAF colonel wished to donate 5 of Thomas Bewick’s woodblocks to the Smithsonian and under the US tax code an independent appraisal of their market value was required. Deborah accepted the assignment and the woodblocks were sent to her. It turned out that they were bought by an impecunious student at Northwestern University in 1954. Since he could not afford any of the large blocks he picked out small tailpieces which he kept for the next 41 years while serving in the USAF all around the world’. 11
One of five blocks donated to the Smithsonian.