Arion Press, M&H Type, and the Grabhorn Institute are operational but closed to public per SF COVID-19 measures. Shipping may be delayed.
Arion Press pairs great artists with great literature to create beautiful books by hand. We publish several limited editions every year, each conceptually unique. Some are accompanied by separate editions of original prints. Our production facility includes a letterpress shop with a historic collection of typefaces, a type foundry operating machinery from 100 years ago, and a complete hand book bindery, housed in a 14,000 square foot industrial building in San Francisco’s Presidio National Park. The Press is supported by the 501(c)(3) non-profit Grabhorn Institute, designated an “irreplaceable cultural treasure” by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Tours of the Press are held every Thursday at 3pm, by reservation. The Institute sponsors an annual series of public talks, events and gallery exhibits at the Press.
Meet the new Director of the Press, Rolph Blythe
“You would expect Arion Press, the preeminent publisher of limited-edition books for more than forty years, to have arrived at a signature style and format. And it has . . . by refusing to do so. ”
“Arion Press’s old mastery is as much a blueprint for the future as a preservation effort for the past. ”
Now available: Horace’s Odes, Book II
The second book in our Subscriber Series is a collaboration between writer and translator Michael Taylor and San Francisco photographer Dennis Letbetter. In 1992, the late Jack Stauffacher published an elegant edition of Book I in Taylor’s translation at his Greenwood Press. Taylor has since finished his Horace translations, and we are pleased to pick up where Jack left off and include the photography of one of his close and long-time associates, Dennis Letbetter. Now available in our store.
Lyra Corporation Joins San Francisco Legacy Business Registry!
On November 12, 2019, the San Francisco Small Business Commission voted to add Arion Press and M&H Type (as Lyra Corporation) to the San Francisco Legacy Business Registry. The Registry intends to honor and preserve “longstanding community-serving businesses that are recognized as valuable cultural assets to San Francisco by the Office of Small Business. Preserving Legacy Businesses is critical to maintaining what makes San Francisco a unique and special place.” We are grateful to our partners at SF Heritage for helping us navigate the application process. Visit the press on our weekly tour to witness firsthand what makes the press and foundry unique.
New Deluxe Binding of Rudolf Koch’s Christian Symbols
In 1996, Arion published a new edition of Rudolf Koch’s Christian Symbols, a large and important collection of 158 historic religious emblems and the outcome of years of research by the Offenbacher Werkstatt, an arts-and-crafts group that produced many sacred objects for use in the Christian Church. Issued in Germany in the mid-1930s as a source-book for artists, designers, and scholars, this essential reference tool had long been out-of-print. The Arion edition reproduced the original woodcuts from polymer plates thereby returning the symbols to circulation, and our bookbinders have recently designed a deluxe binding for the book in an edition limited to 30 copies, now available on our store.
We were honored to be featured by the Science Channel program “How It’s Made” and had a great time demonstrating the letterpress craft and showing them around our shop. Click the image to watch the segment.
Upcoming … and Other News
The gallery currently has a wide-ranging exhibit featuring the artwork of Mexican political illustrator José Guadalupe Posada, from the Brady Nikas Collection and Posada Art Foundation. Coming Summer 2020, the Institute is honored to be hosting the annual exhibition of the Hand Bookbinders of California. And Fall 2020 brings a celebration of the life and work of American-Armenian novelist William Saroyan, with displays of his writing and artwork at the press.
And finally, check out this article in Atlas Obscura, profiling our very own M&H Type, one of the last operational hot metal type foundries in the land.
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“Arion Press produces some of the most beautiful limited-edition, handprinted books in the world. It carries on a grand legacy of San Francisco printers and bookmakers.”