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Five Decades of the Burin - SAVE 30%!

Five Decades of the Burin - SAVE 30%!

The Wood Engravings of John DePol

by David R. Godine

Regular price $12.50 USD
Regular price $17.95 USD Sale price $12.50 USD
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Product Details

Godine

Softcover
ISBN: 1-56792-162-0
Pages: 96
Size: 5.32" x 9.04"
Published: December 2004
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Born in 1913, John DePol is among those classic, self-taught graphic artists (like J. J.Lankes and Rockwell Kent) who worked in a variety of media, but whose main contribution was to the Weld of wood engraving. Although he has illustrated countless books and magazines, and been a friend to most letterpress printers and private presses of the latter half of the last century (Robert Jones's Glad Hand Press, Arthur Rushmore's Golden Hind Press, Neil Shaver's Yellow Barn Press, New York's Typophiles and John Anderson's Pickering Press, among others), his work remains little known, his contributions unheralded. In anticipation of a celebration of his life and work at the University of Delaware, we are presenting more than 100 of his best engravings from five decades with an extensive text examining his place in American graphic art.

David R. Godine was born in Cambridge and educated at The Roxbury Latin School, Dartmouth College, and Harvard University. After a brief stint in the Army, he worked for year as a printing apprentice to Harold McGrath at Leonard Baskin’s Gehenna Press in Northampton. In 1970, along with co-founders Lance Hidy and Martha Rockwell, he converted an abandoned cow barn on a Brookline estate into a printing office from which the company began issuing broadsides, pamphlets, and, ultimately, books, mostly printed from hot metal. By 1975, both the barn and the ambition to make a living as letterpress printers were abandoned in favor of publishing. The company moved to offices in Boston’s Back Bay and subsequently to other locations in the area, remaining a part of the city’s publishing fabric until this day.