Horses, Hounds & Careers in Printing

This racket might finally pay for itself. Recently found in the Palm Beach Post:

Unfortunately the opportunity, like all of the equipment, probably is long gone, since this was from the March 1, 1939 issue. It was found in behind a Derrydale Press equestrian print of the same era. Nice & acidic, just the way we like our matting. The print (along with two others from the series of four) was found at a jumble shop, and has led us into an interesting investigation of the D.P.'s activities.

Horses & hounds aren't exactly our scene, but from a printmaking perspective, the work is exquisite: aquatint and hand coloring. The artist is Paul Brown, an American who who specialized in equestrian subjects. James Cummins recently issued a catalogue devoted to the work of the D.P. Despite the fact that much of the work was basically vanity publishing, the quality seems to have been consistently high, as are the prices. An excellent short history of the press, written by a Mr. Steve Starrantino, can be found at this location.

Horses and hounds may become our scene: another recent trip out netted two drypoints by Irish artist Tom Carr. More horses, but it was the quality of this pair that was evident from across a very large & jumbled room, not the subject matter. Carr was primarily a watercolorist, but like all good painters he stretched himself with printmaking. He studied drypoint etching under George Vernon Stokes and produced many limited edition etchings of his hunting scenes in small editions (drypoint being the least resilient of intaglio methods). 

The combination of intaglio with letterpress has been a particular interest at HM since the beginning, but we haven't had much opportunity to play in that direction. Part of the hurdle has been the necessity of having someone else do the intaglio printing. However, recent experiments at printing small copperplate engravings and etchings with our Washington press have been promising, and we hope to incorporate it into projects in the near future. Probably not a combination they taught at the Southern School of Printing back in '39.