"The English Tradition in Nature Printing" subject of Chapin Library Lecture

Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., April 21, 2003–Noted authority on the history of printing Roderick Cave will speak on “The English Tradition in Nature Printing” at 4:15 p.m. on Friday, April 25 in the Stetson Hall Faculty Lounge.

Making prints direct from leaves and flowers (or from fishes and animals) has been practiced in many parts of the world over the centuries. The technique was adapted by Benjamin Franklin to produce counterfeit-proof banknotes, and in the 19th century enjoyed a heyday as a means of botanical illustration. Roderick Cave’s talk will concentrate on technical advances which enabled these developments, particularly in the work of Alois Auer in Vienna and Henry Bradbury in London. It will look also at the industrial developments in printing lace and other objects in Birmingham, Nottingham, and Sheffield, England, and the interplay between nature printing and early photographic techniques; and it will review the contribution of the 20th-century London artist/printer Morris Cox, whose methods were different from those popularized in the United States by the Nature Printing Society.

Roderick Cave is formerly Foundation Professor of Librarianship at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and the former head of Information Studies at Nanyang University of Singapore. He has also taught in Jamaica, Trinidad, and Nigeria as well as in Great Britain and the United States. Probably best known for his history The Private Press, first published in 1971, he has written widely on aspects of printing and book production. He lives in Leicestershire, England.

The lecture is free and open to the public. It is co-sponsored by the Chapin Library of Rare Books at Williams College and the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art. A reception will follow in the Chapin Library on the second floor of Stetson Hall, in conjunction with the spring exhibition “Reading Material: The Incarnation of Ideas,” on view through May 2. The exhibition includes books by Morris Cox as well as Roderick Cave’s latest work, Chinese Ceremonial Papers, published in 2002.

The Chapin Library is located on the second floor of Stetson Hall, north of Main Street on the Williams College campus. Adjacent parking is available behind Thompson Memorial Chapel. The Library is open Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is free.

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