Collection context
Summary
- Title:
- Adrian Wilson ephemera
- Dates:
- ca. 1947-1998
- Creators:
- Wilson, Adrian
- Language:
- Languages represented in the collection: English
- Preferred citation:
-
Adrian Wilson ephemera, Wilson, The Book Club of California, San Francisco, CA.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
Four archives boxes containing 15 file folders
- Biographical / historical:
-
Wilson, Adrian Adrian Wilson (1923-1988) was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He attended Wesleyan University prior to WWII where he became a conscientious objector and joining the war resistance movement. During the war, he was interned at Camp Angel, Waldport, Oregon, where he met the poet William Everson and learned to print. After the war he and his new wife, Joyce Lancaster Wilson (1914-1996), settled in San Francisco and helped to form the Interplayers Theater and Adrian began his graphic arts career by designing extraordinary programs and posters. For a time, he worked with Jack Stauffacher at the Greenwood Press and he also worked a few years as a book designer at the University of California Press and after leaving their employment, he accepted commissions from them for many years. In 1959, Joyce and Adrian founded The Press in Tuscany Alley in San Francisco and soon Adrian was designing and printing fine limited editions, followed by many commissions for books and catalogs for university presses and art museums, including several volumes for the Book Club of California. Adrian and Joyce collaborated on several large projects, writing and designing scholarly works such as The Making of the Nuremberg Chronicle and A Medieval Mirror. In 1983, Adrian was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Prize. This allowed him to pursue his work as a craftsman, typographer, book designer, and scholar. Joyce wrote, designed, and illustrated several children's books with her own wood blocks and linoleum cuts and continued to operate the press after Adrian's untimely death in 1988.
- Rules or conventions:
- Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard
Indexed terms
About this collection guide
- Date Prepared:
- © 2018
- Date Encoded:
- Machine-readable finding aid created by Mark Knuden. Date of source: September 17, 2018.
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Collection is open for research.
- Terms of access:
-
The Book Club of California has not been assigned copyright of the collection. Requests for permission to publish or quote must be submitted in writing to the Club Librarian and pertains only to the use of the physical item. For materials still under copyright, users are also responsible for obtaining permission from the rights holder.
- Preferred citation:
-
Adrian Wilson ephemera, Wilson, The Book Club of California, San Francisco, CA.
- Location of this collection:
-
312 Sutter Street, Fifth FloorSan Francisco, CA 94108, US
- Contact:
- (415) 781-7532