John and Griselda Lewis Printing Collection

JGL

1470s to c.1996

John Lewis, Griselda Lewis

John Lewis was one of the most influential figures in the study of printed ephemera, who combined his role as a lecturer in graphic design at the Royal College of Art with the authorship of several publications on printing and book design. His 1962 publication 'Printed Ephemera: The Changing Uses of Type and Letterforms in English and American Printing' is considered pivotal in giving credence to the notion of paper ephemera as a subject for research. Married Griselda Rideout, who as Griselda Lewis was a noted writer, designer and ceramics collector, best known for her publication 'A Collector’s History of English Pottery'.Born 1917, as Griselda Rideout. Noted writer, designer and ceramics collector, best known for her publication A Collector’s History of English Pottery. Along with her husband, the typographer and graphic designer John Lewis, she worked with artists and designers, including Edward Bawden, Henry Moore and John Nash, as well as designing programmes and posters for Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears for various Aldeburgh Festivals.

John Lewis (1912 to 1996), combined his role as a lecturer in graphic design at the Royal College of Art with the authorship of several publications on printing and book design, and is regarded as one of the most influential figures in the study of printed ephemera. His 1962 publication 'Printed Ephemera: The Changing Uses of Type and Letterforms in English and American Printing' is considered pivotal in giving credence to the notion of paper ephemera as a subject for research. Lewis began as a typographer for the Cowells printing firm in Ipswich. Whilst working here in the mid-1950s Lewis purchased a large folio scrapbook dating from around 1820 from a local bookshop. This scrapbook had been compiled by a Dr Lodge, at one time the librarian to the University of Cambridge. In it Dr Lodge had collected an assortment of printed matter, including early printers’ marks, individual leaves and specimens of type, as well as an array of tradesmen’s bills and public notices. From this original volume (which he later disassembled) Lewis and his wife, the noted ceramicist Griselda Lewis, began their collection of printed ephemera. The collection was later supplemented by similar material accumulated by the typographer and illustrator Berthold Wolpe, a colleague of John Lewis at the Royal College of Art, plus contributions from Ben Weinreb, a London-based dealer in rare books, to whom the collection was sold in around 1990. What survives today therefore is an amalgamation of the collecting interests of four parties. The result is a diverse and historical printed ephemera collection incorporating not just John and Griselda’s collection of early printing specimens, but also examples of newspaper advertisements, artists’ greetings cards, broadsides, journals, legal documents, book covers and trade cards, plus specimens of calligraphy, marbled paper, lithography and fine art printing. Everything from fifteenth-century printed leaves to twentieth-century food labels. During his ownership of the collection, Weinreb arranged the documents into various categories. Roughly the first half of the collection is organised by document type. These include Early Manuscripts and Printed Books, Prospectuses, and Trade Cards, Letterheads and Catalogues. Much of the latter half is arranged by themes, such as Religion, Maritime, Agriculture, and so on, each of which contain a broad mixture of specimens. In total the collection consists of around 20,000 individual documents, arranged into 72 different series. The majority of documents were glued and mounted onto around 1,900 light cardboard sheets, each measuring approximately 700 x 500mm. This was done presumably as an aid to displaying and discussing the collection. The majority of the collection (c.86 boxes) consists of over 20,000 examples of printed matter, ranging from leaves of medieval manuscripts to twentieth century postcards, trade cards and exhibition catalogues. These documents have been arranged by themes, either by document format or subjects. The majority were originally mounted onto poster-sized boards. In addition, the collection includes a number of printing woodblocks, photographs of documents used to illustrate his publications, and some of Lewis’s correspondence.

96 boxes

Documents removed from harmful mounted boards by Conservator at the Berkshire Records Office, following conservation assessment

English

fonds

Previous owers grouped the collection by format (such as engraved ornament, newspapers and greeting cards) or subject matter (such as sport, royalty or politics), and the archival arrangement follows this system. The remainder of the collection similarly follows the original arrangement, and groups correspondence, wood blocks, etc. as separate series.