Whittington Press ~ England
(John and Rose Randle)

Broadside by Whittington Press
Matrix issues and resource publications by Whittington

Midwinter
By Miriam Macgregor
Risbury,Herefordshire, England: Whittington Press, 2012.
Edition of 265 in three versions.

10.5 x 7.5"; 32 pages. Printed in 14-point Bell on Zerkall mould-made paper. 24 wood engravings. Signed by the artist. Edition of 265 in three versions. Full bound in leather (out of print); half bound in leather (out of print); full bound in paper.

Whittington Press: "In February 2009 the north Cotswolds were covered by a brief but deep fall of snow. A fairytale landscape of changing shapes and patters appeared overnight, and beside the predictable snowman on the village green a habitable igloo even appeared. Miriam Macgregor ventured out into this unfamiliar snowscape with sketchbook and camera, and these engravings, mostly full-page, are the perfect subject for the medium."

$240 Full-bound in paper: 185 copies are full-bound in patterned papers. Slipcased.

A Talent of Friendship
Mavis Lowndes
1912 - 2008
By John Randle and Jean Arrindell (Tinne)
Risbury, Herefordshire, England: Whittington Press, 2011. Edition of 100.

7 x 10.5"; 27 pages. Printed "in the main" for family and friends in Caslon type on Amherst handmade paper (c.1899, now with some signs of age). Edition of 100: 50 deluxe, 50 standard.

Standard: Pamphlet bound in Fabriano Roma papers. Frontispiece photo image of Mavis Lowndes tipped in. In navy blue paper slipcase. Signed. Unnumbered.

Deluxe: Bound in Oasis leather. Blind blocked with silver tops on the front board. Marbled endpapers. Frontispiece photo image of Mavis Lowndes tipped in. Colophon photo image of Randle as a young boy tipped in. In navy blue cloth slipcase. Signed and numbered.

Whittington Press: "This short book is based on the account of his mother’s life that John Randle gave at her funeral in 2008. Printed in the main for family and friends.... It is printed on the last of the small stock of paper made for Lord Amherst in 1898, containing his magnificent coat of arms as its watermark, which we acquired from Oxford University Press in 1986."

Mavis Lowndes was a World War II war widow. She began a business as a dressmaker to support herself and young son. Through her life she had a talent for making friends and maintaining friendships.

A Talent of Friendship is simply and no less than a quietly lovely memorial by a son to his mother.

$ 90 Standard in paper
$ 325 Deluxe in leather

A Vision of Order
Linocuts by Andrew Anderson
Risbury, Herefordshire: Whittington Press, 2011. Edition of 185.

15.5 x 22"; 68 pages. Letterpress printed. Set in 18 and 20 point Caslon. Printed on a heavyweight Zerkall mould-made and Ingres papers.

Of the edition of 185: 150 standard, 35 deluxe.
Standard: Bound in paper illustrated boards with quarter buckram. Titles in gilt on leather spine label. Housed in matching gatefold wrap with tie closure.
Deluxe(out of print): Bound in paper over boards with leather spine. With a portfolio of a selection of prints, including The Rock of Cashel, nine sheets joined together to form an image measuring 4.5 x 3 feet. Housed in clamshell box with titles in gilt on leather spine label.

A Vision of Order Includes 35 linocuts by Anderson, with his commentaries on the images. The large format allows most of the prints to be tipped in unfolded.

Whittington Press: "Andrew Anderson's astonishing linocuts are an arresting mix of image, lettering and symbolism. The images show strong influences of his background as an architect with a particular interest in mediaeval architecture; the lettering brings Eric Gill to mind, but with an added fluency and versatility; and much of the symbolism comes from his involvement with cathedral and church architecture. He has written about his work in MATRIX 28, pp. 9-14.

"He combines these three elements with immense skill and with a rare dedication, and yet his images have an astonishing vibrance and magnetism. Little known or seen over the years, hampered perhaps because of their size and the artist's preoccupation with his architectural work, they appear here for the first time in a readily accessible form, each with a note by the artist explaining its content and symbolism."

Andrew Anderson, introduction: "The cuts fall into five groups: (1) plain inscriptions, which were among the first to be done; (2) imagined cities; (3) love poems - courting couples dallying in orchards and beds; (4) country churches; and (5) historic hymns and verses celebrating the age-old festivals of the Christian Year. There are two designs for Christmas cards, a wedding invitation, the front of a house with three windows and a door (an early linocut from my student days), a Crucifixion, lines from a poem by Charles Williams, and a Noah's Ark.

"I am an architect, not an artist. The oblique viewpoint in many of the cuts – geometrical projections of the kind used in architectural drawings to explain buildings – shows this. "

$ 600 standard (Last Copy)

Portmeirion
Images by Leslie Gerry
text by Robin Llywelyn
Andoversford, England: Whittington Press, 2008. Edition of 225.

8.125 x 11.75 x 1.5"; 40 pages. Printed on Somerset and Zerkall geglättet mould made papers. Type: 24 point Stephenson Blake Caslon. Original prints drawn on a tablet then digitally printed by the artist. Accordion fold with endpages as pastedowns. Bound in paper-covered matching illustrated boards. Edition of 225: 165 in slipcase; 60 in solander box with set of signed prints and poster.

Whittington Press: "The images in this startling book are unlike anything the Press has attempted before. Drawn on an electronic tablet and printed on a digital printer, their brilliance and inventiveness perfectly mirror the atmosphere of Portmeirion, the extraordinary Italianate village built by the eccentric architect Clough Williams-Ellis on a remote peninsula in North Wales. Clough’s grandson, Robin Llywelyn, who spent much of his childhood with his grandparents at Portmeirion, has written short but evocative texts about each of Leslie Gerry’s seven images of the village. The unusual conception and binding of Portmeirion is a tribute to the genius of Williams-Ellis, who continued the building of Portmeirion until well into his eighties, and its complexities have delayed the publication of the book by several months – just as one imagines Williams-Ellis’ designs must have delayed the builders of Portmeirion. We have seldom had such an enthusiastic reception as the one we have had to Portmeirion."

$240 standard, in slipcase (Last three copies)

Whittington Press Out of Print Titles:
• Britten's Aldeburgh
• Busy as a Bee
• Gwenda Morgan: The Diary of a Land Girl
• Fine Papers at the Oxford University Press
• Matrix 6
• Matrix 9
• Matrix 14
• Matrix 18
• Matrix 21: A Review for Printers & Bibliophiles
• Matrix 22
• Matrix 24 deluxe
• Matrix 24 standard
• Matrix 25
• Mattioli’s Herbal
• The wood engravings of John O’Connor

Pastorale
By John Bidwell
wood-engravings by Lucien Pissarro,
with a note on the Kelmscott paper
Risbury, Herefordshire, England: Whittington Press, 2011. Edition of 300.

10 x 7"; 80 pages. Set in 12-point Caslon type. Printed from the original engravings on the three different papers made by Joseph Batchelor & Son to the original specifications of William Morris.

Colophon: "Some of the paper is the best part of a century old, and some sheets may bear the patina of age. The different formats of each edition reflect the slightly different sizes of each of the three papers."

Edition of 300: 160 Standard, 100 deluxe, 40 special.

Standard: Printed on the Crown and Sceptre paper. Half-bound in Fabriano Ingress papers. Slipcased.

Deluxe: Printed on the Flower paper made for the Kelmscott Press. Half bound in Oasis leather and pre-war Fabriano Ingres. Contains the proofs and an additional engraving in a separate cased portfolio. In single slipcase.

Whittington Press: "The selection of these twenty-four wood-engravings by Lucien Pissarro, mostly done for his Eragny Press, is based on a pastoral theme, at which he excelled. They are printed from the original boxwood blocks, kindly lent to us by the Ashmolean Museum, and printed on some of the last remaining stock of Joseph Batchelor’s hand-made paper, made to William Morris’ specification, some of which has been generously given to us by the Morgan Library and Museum in New York, where it has lain for over a century.

"The book contains an introduction by John Bidwell on the origins of the Batchelor paper, and a memoir by Miriam Macgregor of her grandfather, the artist Archie Macgregor, Pissarro’s close friend and neighbour."
Standard (SOLD)
Deluxe (SOLD)