Catalogue of an Exhibition of the Typographic Work of Jane Grabhorn

Published June 28, 2025

Jane Grabhorn (1911–1973) was an artist, typographer, bookbinder, and printer from San Francisco. In the spring of 1956, an exhibition of her typographic work was shown in the Albert M. Bender Room of the Stanford University Libraries. The accompanying catalog was edited by J. Terry Bender (1926–1977), special‐collections librarian, and published by Stanford University Libraries in 500 copies.

The book was printed by Grabhorn at the Grabhorn Press herself. The cover and the title page show the device of the Colt Press. The typeface is Friar. Designed by Frederic W. Goudy in 1937 as his 105th type design and first used in a Christmas keepsake, only a few fonts were ever cast by the Village Letter Foundery. Friar is also used for titles in the bibliography. The text typeface is ATF Garamond. The red headers that mix roman capitals with italic lowercase letters might be from Goudy’s Garamont.

From the preface:

The material is grouped into three sections and arranged chronologically within each. First come the items produced by the Jumbo Press, which was Mrs. Grabhorn’s first imprint. These are followed by the books of the Colt Press, a commercial publishing venture undertaken in 1938 by Jane Grabhorn, William Matson Roth, and Jane Swinerton. The Colt Press has published thirty-five books to date and will issue its thirty-sixth this year. The last section of the catalogue is devoted to a group of additional books and ephemeral pieces designed and produced by Jane Grabhorn apart from those issued under the Jumbo and Colt imprints.

Read more about Jane Grabhorn and her Jumbo Press in Mallory Haselberger’s “The Feminist Possibilities of Print”.

Read full story.

WRITTEN BY

FontsInUse

An independent archive of typography.