The 51st Annual William A. Dwiggins Lecture presented by the Society of Printers and the Boston Public Library
Speaker: Barry Moser
In this year’s Dwiggins lecture, Moser will tell the story of a modestly educated young man from East Tennessee who, disenchanted by the politics and religion of his family, workplace, and community, followed a teaching career to New England. There, in Central Massachusetts, he met people like Leonard Baskin and Harold McGrath who continued his education in printmaking, typography, book design, and illustration and encouraged him to follow his instincts. This led to a career spanning five decades and many hundreds of book illustrations produced for his Pennyroyal Press, and for major commercial publishers, which prompts the now-experienced illustrator to offer some reflection on the art of illustration.
Moser’s wood engravings, watercolors, children’s illustrations, and reinterpretations of the classics, including the Pennyroyal Press editions of Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, Frankenstein, Huckleberry Finn, The Wizard of Oz, and the Pennyroyal Caxton Edition of The Holy Bible, are widely admired. His work has been published in more than two hundred books for children and adults.
Registration to the lecture is not required but appreciated.
Plus Special Collections Open House showcasing the work of Barry Moser and Pennyroyal Press from the collections of the Boston Public Library
Kirstein Business Library and Innovation Center, next to Rabb Hall
4:30-5:30 pm
Boston’s Society of Printers was founded in 1905 partly as a response to the social and aesthetic ideas of William Morris and John Ruskin, leaders of the English Arts and Crafts movement. Boston’s practitioners in the book arts desired a refuge where printing could be studied as an art away from the pressures of the commercial world where it was seen only as a business and a craft. Dedicated to the study and advancement of the art of printing, the SP was the nation’s first graphic design organization. It took another seventeen years before W. A. Dwiggins (1880–1956), in whose honor our lecture series is named, would finally coin the term “graphic design” in 1922.
The SP’s eighty members, today grown to one hundred and twenty-one, included not only printers, but also book designers, type designers, calligraphers, illustrators, book binders, teachers, and librarians. Their mission was to educate themselves about book arts history, to learn about new developments in design and technology, and to share their interests with others through exhibitions, lectures, and publications.
The Society does not promote any one style of design or printing technique, nor does it set out to criticize the work of others. Its members believe instead that by studying the best work that has been done, we prepare to face the challenges of the day. Leaders in American graphic design built their careers upon this principle, including Society members who are no longer with us: Bruce Rogers, Daniel Berkeley Updike, Frederick W. Goudy, W. A. Dwiggins, Rudolph Ruzicka, Carl Purington Rollins, Joseph Blumenthal, Dorothy Abbe, Carl Zahn, Roderick Stinehour, Hermann Zapf, and Leonard Baskin.
The Society of Printers and the Boston Public Library are honored to host Barry Moser as the fifty-first Dwiggins speaker.
THE SOCIETY OF PRINTERS
For the Study & Advancement of the Art of Printing
COUNCIL
President: Sarah Hulsey
Vice President: Katherine Hughes
Treasurer: Tony Leone
Secretary: Vladimir Zimakov
Auditor: Scott Vile
John Gambell
Ellery Harvey
Christopher Pullman
Phil Salmon
Please direct any questions to the Secretary: secretary@societyofprinters.org
LOCATION:Boston Public Library, Rabb Hall, 700 Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20260402T220000Z DTEND:20260403T035859Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR