Participant Info
- First Name
- Stephen
- Last Name
- Saxe
- Press Name
- Fort-Hill Press
- City
- White Plains
- State
- NY
- Country
- US
- sos22 AT optonline.net
- Website or Blogsite
- Year You Started with Letterpress
- 1966
- How You Got Involved In Letterpress Printing
- <p style="text-align: justify;">I've been interested in printing from age 10. I finally bought a tabletop Pilot press in 1966.</p>
- Presses & Equipment
- <p style="text-align: justify;">Golding Improved Pearl 11; Vandercook SP-15; C&P Pilot; Foolscap Folio Albion; and about 20 small "hobby" presses. I have a collection of about 500 fonts of nineteenth-century type, and about 250 nineteenth-century American foundry type specimen books.</p>
- Education & Training
- <p style="text-align: justify;">A.B. Harvard, 1951; M.F.A. Yale, 1954.</p>
- Work History
- <p style="text-align: justify;">Scenic Designer, New York City Opera; television scenery, CBS-TV, New York; Book Designer, Harcourt Brace, New York.</p>
- Other Interests & Hobbies
- <p style="text-align: justify;">I worked as a scenic designer at CBS-TV for many years, designing soap operas: <em>The Edge of Night,</em> and <em>As the World Turns.</em> For the New York City Opera I designed the sets for <em>Porgy and Bess</em>, starring William Warfield, and for Gilbert and Sullivan's <em>The Yeomen of the Guard.</em> In the UK, I designed a television play for ABC-TV. I also made working drawings of HMS Victory at Portsmouth, for an exhibition at Mme. Tussaud's, <em>The Battle of Trafalgar and the Death of Nelson</em>.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;" lang="\"\\"en-US\\"\"" align="\"\\"JUSTIFY\\"\"">At this point I had become very interested in typography and the history of printing. I worked as a book designer for Harcourt Brace in New York. Meanwhile I had bought a Pilot press, quantities of type (especially nineteenth-century faces) as well as nineteenth-century British and American foundry type specimen books and printers\\\' manuals.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;" align="\"\\"JUSTIFY\\"\"">In 1974 was a founding member of the board of the American Printing History Association; I edited the APHA <em>Newsletter </em>from 1986 to 1990, writing an article on some aspect of printing history for six issues each year. In 1992 the Yellow Barn Press printed and published my <em>American Iron Hand Presses</em>, with wood engravings by my friend John De Pol. A trade edition was published the following year by Oak noll Books.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;" align="\"\\"JUSTIFY\\"\"">Other books I have had a hand in: I edited the second edition of Maurice Annenberg's <em>American Type</em><em>Foundries and their Catalogs</em><em>; </em>edited Gabriel Rummonds <em>Nineteenth-Century Printing Practices and the Iron Handpress</em><em>.</em> Most recently I co-edited, with Alistair Johnston, Loy's <em>Nineteenth-Century American Designers and Engravers of Type</em>. All of the above books were published by Oak Knoll.</p>
- Letterpress Group Memberships, If Any
- APA, APHA Founding Member
- Birth Year
- 1930