Andrew Hoyem
Encyclopedia
Andrew Hoyem is a typographer, letterpress printer, publisher, poet
, and preservationist
. He is the founder and director of Arion Press
in San Francisco, which "is considered the nation's leading publisher of fine-press books," according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Arion Press "carries on a grand legacy of San Francisco printers and bookmakers," according to Michael Kimmelman of The New York Times
.http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A03E2D7123FF936A35752C1A9609C8B63&sec=&spon=&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
As a publisher, Hoyem has focused on creating limited edition books of notable literature illustrated with original prints from prominent artists, including Jim Dine
, Robert Motherwell
, Jasper Johns
, John Baldessari
, Richard Diebenkorn
, Wayne Thiebaud
, Alex Katz
, Martin Puryear
, and Kiki Smith
. Hoyem has published such contemporary writers as Seamus Heaney
, Robert Alter
, Tom Stoppard
, Lawrence Ferlinghetti
, David Mamet
, and Helen Vendler
.
Andrew Hoyem summarized the arc of his career in an interview with Elizabeth Farnsworth
of the PBS
-TV NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
: "I started out by having a combined interest in literature and visual arts, and enjoyed drawing as well as writing poetry, and those two interests really came to one in the making of books by hand."http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/july-dec00/bible_12-29.html
Born in 1935 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Hoyem graduated from Pomona College
and served in the U. S. Navy.http://www.arionpress.com/hoyem.htm In 1961 he became a partner with Dave Haselwood in The Auerhahn Press
, a small literary press that published Beat Generation
writers. In 1966 he formed Grabhorn-Hoyem in partnership with Robert Grabhorn, the surviving half of the Grabhorn Press. After Grabhorn's death in 1973, Hoyem reformed the company as the Arion Press, taking its name from the Greek poet of legend who was saved by a dolphin. Since 1975, he has published more than 80 limited-edition books under the Arion Press imprint, including Melville's Moby-Dick
, Joyce's Ulysses
, and a folio Bible
.
The scholar James D. Hart, writing in Fine Printing: The San Francisco Tradition, has characterized Hoyem's books "as marked by an unusual inventiveness", praising the handset folio edition of Moby-Dick as a "majestic volume", among Arion's "virtuoso performances". According to Biblio magazine, "Many authorities rank this edition of Moby-Dick as one of the two or three greatest American fine-press books."
Hoyem's most ambitious project is the Folio Bible, with production extending over several years. This is likely to be the last Bible to be printed from metal type,http://www.jyanet.com/cap/2000/0704fe0.shtml following in the tradition of large-format Bibles printed from movable type
that extends from Johannes Gutenberg through John Baskerville
, the Doves Press
, and the Oxford Lectern Bible
designed by Bruce Rogers. "From melting the lead, to proofreading, to physically lifting 40-pound frames of type, the consensus of Andrew Hoyem, as publisher of the Arion Press, and his small crew of eight craftspeople, is that a hand-wrought Bible is intrinsically valuable," in the words of the Christian Science Monitor.http://www.csmonitor.com/1999/1110/p18s1.html
In 1989 Hoyem led Arion to acquire Mackenzie & Harris, the oldest and largest remaining type foundry in the United States, started with equipment displayed at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915. In 2000 the future of the type foundry and letterpress operations was threatened by eviction, requiring the logistical challenge and expense of moving over 140 tons of equipment and metal type to a suitable new facility. In response, Hoyem founded the nonprofit Grabhorn Institute
to help preserve and continue the use of one of the last integrated typefoundry, letterpress printing, and bookbinding facilities, developing it as a living museum and educational and cultural center, open to the public with a gallery and tours as well as an apprenticeship program. The press and foundry relocated to The Presidio of San Francisco
as a cultural tenant. In 2000 the hot-metal typecasting and letterpress printing operation was designated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation
as part of "the nation's irreplaceable historical and cultural legacy" under its Save America's Treasures
program.http://www.arionpress.com/grabhorn.htm
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, and preservationist
Preservationist
Preservationist is generally understood to mean historic preservationist: one who advocates to preserve architecturally or historically significant buildings, structures, objects or sites from demolition or degradation...
. He is the founder and director of Arion Press
Arion Press
The Arion Press "is considered the nation's leading publisher of fine-press books," according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Founded in San Francisco in 1974, it has published 80-plus limited-edition books, most printed by letterpress, often illustrated with original prints by notable...
in San Francisco, which "is considered the nation's leading publisher of fine-press books," according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Arion Press "carries on a grand legacy of San Francisco printers and bookmakers," according to Michael Kimmelman of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
.http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A03E2D7123FF936A35752C1A9609C8B63&sec=&spon=&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
As a publisher, Hoyem has focused on creating limited edition books of notable literature illustrated with original prints from prominent artists, including Jim Dine
Jim Dine
Jim Dine is an American pop artist. He is sometimes considered to be a part of the Neo-Dada movement. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, attended Walnut Hills High School, the University of Cincinnati, and received a BFA from Ohio University in 1957. He first earned respect in the art world with...
, Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell American painter, printmaker and editor. He was one of the youngest of the New York School , which also included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Philip Guston....
, Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns, Jr. is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.-Life:Born in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns spent his early life in Allendale, South Carolina with his paternal grandparents after his parents' marriage failed...
, John Baldessari
John Baldessari
John Anthony Baldessari is an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lives and works in Santa Monica and Venice, California...
, Richard Diebenkorn
Richard Diebenkorn
Richard Diebenkorn was a well-known 20th century American painter. His early work is associated with Abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. His later work were instrumental to his achievement of worldwide acclaim.-Biography:Richard Clifford Diebenkorn Jr...
, Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud is an American painter whose most famous works are of cakes, pastries, boots, toilets, toys and lipsticks. He is associated with the Pop art movement because of his interest in objects of mass culture, although his works, executed during the fifties and sixties, slightly predate...
, Alex Katz
Alex Katz
Alex Katz is an American figurative artist associated with the Pop art movement. In particular, he is known for his paintings, sculptures, and prints and is represented by numerous galleries internationally.-Life and work:...
, Martin Puryear
Martin Puryear
Martin Puryear is an African American sculptor. He works in media including wood, stone, tar, and wire, and his work is a union of minimalism and traditional crafts.-Life:...
, and Kiki Smith
Kiki Smith
Kiki Smith is an American artist classified as a feminist artist, a movement with beginnings in the twentieth century...
. Hoyem has published such contemporary writers as Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer. He lives in Dublin. Heaney has received the Nobel Prize in Literature , the Golden Wreath of Poetry , T. S. Eliot Prize and two Whitbread prizes...
, Robert Alter
Robert Alter
Robert Bernard Alter is an American professor of Hebrew language and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1967.-Biography:...
, Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...
, Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is an American poet, painter, liberal activist, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers...
, David Mamet
David Mamet
David Alan Mamet is an American playwright, essayist, screenwriter and film director.Best known as a playwright, Mamet won a Pulitzer Prize and received a Tony nomination for Glengarry Glen Ross . He also received a Tony nomination for Speed-the-Plow . As a screenwriter, he received Oscar...
, and Helen Vendler
Helen Vendler
Helen Hennessy Vendler is a leading American critic of poetry.-Life and career:Vendler has written books on Emily Dickinson, W. B. Yeats, Wallace Stevens, John Keats, and Seamus Heaney. She has been a professor of English at Harvard University since 1984; between 1981 and 1984 she taught...
.
Andrew Hoyem summarized the arc of his career in an interview with Elizabeth Farnsworth
Elizabeth Farnsworth
Elizabeth Farnsworth is an American television news anchorwoman.Born in 1943 Elizabeth Fink in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to a family of farmers, teachers, doctors and railroad executives....
of the PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
-TV NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
Jim Lehrer
James Charles "Jim" Lehrer is an American journalist and the executive editor and former news anchor for PBS NewsHour on PBS, known for his role as a frequent debate moderator during elections...
: "I started out by having a combined interest in literature and visual arts, and enjoyed drawing as well as writing poetry, and those two interests really came to one in the making of books by hand."http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/july-dec00/bible_12-29.html
Born in 1935 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Hoyem graduated from Pomona College
Pomona College
Pomona College is a private, residential, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. Founded in 1887 in Pomona, California by a group of Congregationalists, the college moved to Claremont in 1889 to the site of a hotel, retaining its name. The school enrolls 1,548 students.The founding member...
and served in the U. S. Navy.http://www.arionpress.com/hoyem.htm In 1961 he became a partner with Dave Haselwood in The Auerhahn Press
The Auerhahn Press
Founded by printer-poet Dave Haselwood in 1958, the Auerhahn Press published many key poets of the San Francisco Renaissance.Stated in advertisements appearing in Evergreen Review, Poetry, City Lights Journal and Big Table magazines, the press’s goal was “to re-marry good printing and writing,” and...
, a small literary press that published Beat Generation
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
writers. In 1966 he formed Grabhorn-Hoyem in partnership with Robert Grabhorn, the surviving half of the Grabhorn Press. After Grabhorn's death in 1973, Hoyem reformed the company as the Arion Press, taking its name from the Greek poet of legend who was saved by a dolphin. Since 1975, he has published more than 80 limited-edition books under the Arion Press imprint, including Melville's Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, was written by American author Herman Melville and first published in 1851. It is considered by some to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod,...
, Joyce's Ulysses
Ulysses (novel)
Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
, and a folio Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
.
The scholar James D. Hart, writing in Fine Printing: The San Francisco Tradition, has characterized Hoyem's books "as marked by an unusual inventiveness", praising the handset folio edition of Moby-Dick as a "majestic volume", among Arion's "virtuoso performances". According to Biblio magazine, "Many authorities rank this edition of Moby-Dick as one of the two or three greatest American fine-press books."
Hoyem's most ambitious project is the Folio Bible, with production extending over several years. This is likely to be the last Bible to be printed from metal type,http://www.jyanet.com/cap/2000/0704fe0.shtml following in the tradition of large-format Bibles printed from movable type
Movable type
Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document ....
that extends from Johannes Gutenberg through John Baskerville
John Baskerville
John Baskerville was an English businessman, in areas including japanning and papier-mâché, but he is best remembered as a printer and typographer.-Life:...
, the Doves Press
Doves Press
Doves Press was a private press based in Hammersmith, London. It was founded by T. J. Cobden Sanderson before 1900 when he asked Sir Emery Walker to join him . Cobden Sanderson commissioned the press's type, which was drawn under Walker's supervision, and set up the Doves Bindery to bind the books...
, and the Oxford Lectern Bible
Oxford Lectern Bible
The Oxford Lectern Bible was a massive edition of the English Bible designed by American typographer Bruce Rogers. The Bible, completed in 1935, was published by Oxford University Press. There were three sizes of the Bible printed...
designed by Bruce Rogers. "From melting the lead, to proofreading, to physically lifting 40-pound frames of type, the consensus of Andrew Hoyem, as publisher of the Arion Press, and his small crew of eight craftspeople, is that a hand-wrought Bible is intrinsically valuable," in the words of the Christian Science Monitor.http://www.csmonitor.com/1999/1110/p18s1.html
In 1989 Hoyem led Arion to acquire Mackenzie & Harris, the oldest and largest remaining type foundry in the United States, started with equipment displayed at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915. In 2000 the future of the type foundry and letterpress operations was threatened by eviction, requiring the logistical challenge and expense of moving over 140 tons of equipment and metal type to a suitable new facility. In response, Hoyem founded the nonprofit Grabhorn Institute
Grabhorn Institute
The Grabhorn Institute is a nonprofit organization formed in October 2000 for the purpose of preserving and continuing the use of one of the last integrated type foundry, letterpress printing, and bookbinding facilities in the fine press tradition, and operating it as a living museum and...
to help preserve and continue the use of one of the last integrated typefoundry, letterpress printing, and bookbinding facilities, developing it as a living museum and educational and cultural center, open to the public with a gallery and tours as well as an apprenticeship program. The press and foundry relocated to The Presidio of San Francisco
Presidio of San Francisco
The Presidio of San Francisco is a park on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area...
as a cultural tenant. In 2000 the hot-metal typecasting and letterpress printing operation was designated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation
National Trust for Historic Preservation
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is an American member-supported organization that was founded in 1949 by congressional charter to support preservation of historic buildings and neighborhoods through a range of programs and activities, including the publication of Preservation...
as part of "the nation's irreplaceable historical and cultural legacy" under its Save America's Treasures
Save America's Treasures
Save America's Treasures is a United States Federal initiative to preserve and protect American historic buildings, arts, and published works. It is a public-private partnership between the U.S. National Park Service and the National Trust for Historic Preservation...
program.http://www.arionpress.com/grabhorn.htm