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Guide to the Adrian Wilson Ephemera
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Descriptive Summary
  • Access
  • Publication Rights
  • Preferred Citation
  • Biography / Administrative History
  • Scope and Content of Collection
  • Indexing Terms

  • Descriptive Summary

    Title: Adrian Wilson ephemera
    Dates: ca. 1947-1998
    Collection number: Wilson
    Creator: Wilson, Adrian
    Repository: The Book Club of California
    San Francisco, CA 94108
    Languages: Languages represented in the collection: English

    Access

    Collection is open for research.

    Publication Rights

    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.

    Biography / Administrative History

    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.

    Scope and Content of Collection

    Four archives boxes containing 15 file folders

    Indexing Terms

    The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
    Private presses--California
    Printed ephemera
    Letterpress printing
    Press in Tuscany Alley
    Wilson, Adrian
    Wilson, Joyce Lancaster
    Fine press--specimens