Typographic Jazz
The Monoprints of Jack Stauffacher
The current exhibit (runs January 27 – May 26, 2024) at the Letterform Archive in San Francisco, CA, features the wood type monoprints of Jack Stauffacher. Stauffacher was a San Francisco printer, typographer and fine book publisher; the owner and operator of Greenwood Press. He also taught classes in design, typography, and printmaking at Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University, University of California, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco Art Institute.
As the exhibit's opening text states (emphasis added):
"Typographic Jazz, The Monoprints of Jack Stauffacher explores the iconic Bay Area printer's most playful and improvisational work. Stauffacher's experiments in inking and layering led to an extraordinary body of unique monoprints. This exhibition looks beyond the methods displayed in his well-known portfolio editions of wood type prints, and includes his sketches, iterative proofs, and other unfinished work to help us understand his process and give us a peek into his mind. This rarely seen body of work demonstrates masterful use (and misuse) of the tools at his disposal as well as the creative potential of letterpress with wood type. Through his use of abstraction, color, form, rotation, overprinting, ink manipulation, and transparency, Stauffacher's prints remind the viewer that design not only involves planning and precision, but also randomness and spontaneity. Each piece reveals its own history and reminds us of the inherent human touch necessary in the making of art"
There is further explanation that much of the work was undated, so, rather than being organized chronologically, it is displayed in "what we came to call Stories, or groups of prints made from the same lockup, organized by our sense of progression."
Then there is the origin story of the wood type used to make the prints:
"In 1966, another printer in Jack's building in San Francisco offered Jack some wood type, and he filled one large box with a random selection of letter blocks. He took no complete fonts, picked the most interesting forms, and chose a few split or broken blocks too. He called it his Toy Box, and its contents were both the inspiration and the primary constraint for an extraordinary body of experimental monoprints made over the following 50 years."
It was super awesome getting to see the wood type from the Toy Box, both as aesthetic objects in their own right, as well as being displayed alongside prints that had been made from them. Wood type has such character, and it was obvious that these were well used and enjoyed.
Another thing that caught my attention were his early experiments with overprinting and rotation of metal type, which were new to me. It was a relatively small part of the exhibit, but it was neat to see the early work and how it might have lead to the later work with the wood type. Or not. (That compare/contrast thing...) Some of the prints actually reminded me of work Eric Johnson, one of my printing teachers and mentor, has done. Is it that there's nothing new under the sun, or great minds think alike, or ?
The mockups, where Stauffacher had cut out the letter shapes and arranged them, were cool to see alongside finished prints. Those, and the variations shown in other displays were a bit like being a fly on the wall while he worked. Fun stuff.
All the prints delight in the shapes - both positive and negative space from the letters - and the new shapes formed by layering.
Although some of the prints are signed, I felt a strong sense this work is really just for the heck of it. Things that he did because he could and because he enjoyed it. Maybe I imagined that, but it really spoke to me.1 I mean, how often do you see a whole show like that?
If you are in San Francisco, I would highly recommend checking this show out, especially if you have any interest in printing. It's a single room, so not a huge exhibit space, meaning you can really spend time with all the pieces on display, and not feel overwhelmed. But, to be honest, excellent as it was, I don't think I would travel from Sonoma County just for this - I combined it with a visit to SFCB, which felt like a much better travel to art ratio.
If you aren't in the area, check out the Letterform Archive's website, and their book on Stauffacher: Only on Saturday: The Wood Type Prints of Jack Stauffacher.
Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase from the kid sister press shop.
Art is of course many things, and done for many reasons, but I get the impression that fun tends to be pooh-poohed or looked down on by the Capital A / Serious Artpeople.