#robert nathan

It’s Fine Press Friday!

This week we present One More Spring by Robert Nathan, printed in 1935 at Frank Altschul’s Overbrook Press in Stamford, Connecticut in an edition of 750 copies. The typography, cover paper and illustrations are by the noted American graphic designer W. A. Dwiggins. The figurative illustrations that open each chapter were created by use of stencils. The design historian Paul Shaw writes in the article “Tradition and Innovation: The Design Work of William Addison Dwiggins”:

“Several divergent influences can be discerned in Dwiggins’s many stencil ornaments and designs. The geometric patterns are similar to contemporary Art Deco and Art Moderne designs, though Arab and Moorish tilework was more likely Dwiggins’s source of inspiration. His striking floral designs have an affinity with Chinese and Japanese renderings of plants. And his odd color harmonies, such as red, green, yellow, and lavender, owed much to Chinese and Persian art. He described such color combinations as “a chutney-sauce effect with lots of pepper and mustard and spices.” Often criticized by other book designers at the time as garish or ugly, such color combinations are increasingly common today.”

Paul Shaw writes that W.A. Dwiggins’s illustrations in One More Spring  “make outstanding use of paper as part of the picture, deftly balancing blank space with abstract geometrical shapes to imply figures and scenes.”

Our copy of One More Spring is another generous donations from our friend Jerry Buff.

View our other W.A. Dwiggins posts.

View more Fine Press Friday posts.

"His mind was a cave of winds blowing from all corners at once, a tempest of ideas. He was in love with color. He was like a Viking gone berserk in a rainbow."