News of the Grabhorn Institute
The Grabhorn Institute is the nonprofit umbrella over Arion Press and M & H Type, engaged in education and preservation efforts. Our programs include a lecture series, exhibitions, tours of the production facility, and apprenticeships in typecasting, letterpress printing, and book binding. Here is the 2011 Report Letter to supporters summarizing some of the Institute's many recent activities.
NEWS OF THE GRABHORN INSTITUTE AND ARION PRESS 2011
Dear Friend:
We greatly appreciate your support of Arion Press and Grabhorn Institute. It is with special urgency that we appeal to you this year for a year-end tax-deductible contribution. We have slowly regained some, but not all, of the revenue that fell 40 per cent in the 2008 downturn. This year, with the cutbacks in public funding, we have lost our usual $35,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
This means we must rely more than ever on individuals to preserve a literally unique cultural resource, the historic printing facility at Arion Press. Here the centuries-old crafts of fine bookmaking, the legacy of Gutenberg, are still practiced from start to finish, from the casting of type from molten metal, through letterpress printing, to hand binding. The results are books made at the highest level of craft and illustrated by today’s most respected artists, such as Jasper Johns, Wayne Thiebaud, Kiki Smith, John Baldessari, and Julie Mehretu.
Designated “an irreplaceable cultural treasure” by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in 2001 we opened our doors to the public as a living museum and educational center. Our apprenticeships, public tours, school visits, and free programs and exhibitions now involve more than 4,000 people annually, including students at all levels.
In 2012, we will need your support if we are to sustain our apprenticeships and summer residency for college students, the Grabhorn Fellows. In partnership with the College Book Art Association, the Fellows workshop program brings outstanding book arts students to San Francisco to learn from our production staff. We are proud of our expanded educational efforts, despite the recession, including the Artseed summer art camp for students from Bayview/Hunters Point and Presidio Teacher’s Night.
Other accomplishments of the past year include:
- New York symposium and exhibition on Arion’s landmark edition of Don Quixote.
- Publishing a new translation of the ancient Greek poet Sappho with artist Julie Mehretu and University of California scholar Page duBois.
- New collaborations including with the Aurora Theater for their Twentieth Anniversary production of Edward Albee’s play A Delicate Balance.
- Free evening programs with poet laureate Robert Pinsky, playwright Edward Albee, critic Robert Alter, novelist Diane Johnson, actor Joy Carlin, and Stanford historian Mary Felstiner.
- New apprenticeships for Chris Godek and Mark Sarigianis in typecasting and printing.
- Free talks and exhibitions on the illustrations that gave a physical identity to Sherlock Holmes, on the King James Bible 400th anniversary, on the great type designer Jim Rimmer, and on Nazi-era artist Charlotte Salomon.
- Arion books in museum exhibitions: The World Is Round in the Gertrude Stein exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, Cane at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Don Quixote at the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute.
- Articles in The Paris Review and (forthcoming) The New York Review of Books (publication of the John Daley translation of Sappho we commissioned for Poetry of Sappho).
This past year, our creative and educational activity has been more vigorous than ever, even as we struggle with reduced revenues. We cannot relax our effort to sustain this historic arts facility for use by future generations. Your involvement as a donor is crucial. Please accept our thanks and consider a meaningful contribution at year’s end.
Sincerely,
Andrew Hoyem
Diana Ketcham
To contribute, please print, fill in, and mail a contribution form:
Contribution form
or donate securely online now:
GRABHORN INSTITUTE
1802 Hays Street, The Presidio, San Francisco, California 94129
Telephone: 415-668-2548; Fax: 415-668-2550
E-mail: arionpress@arionpress.com