Fireside Chat with Bruce Kennett, expert on W. A. Dwiggins

Saturday, June 3rd at 1:00 pm

Throughout his fifty-year career, Bruce Kennett has been a graphic designer (primarily books), a photographer, a calligrapher, an exhibit designer, a teacher and lecturer, and a writer. Bruce has worked in letterpress and offset — setting foundry type in a stick and by PhotoTypositor, running a darkroom and stripping, and managing Maine’s celebrated Anthoensen Press.

He cut an entire typeface by hand in Rubylith. Set running heads in Morse Code. Back in the 1970s, he studied calligraphy and book design in Austria with Friedrich Neugebauer. His book clients have ranged from the Folger Shakespeare Library and L.L. Bean to the National Science Foundation. Bruce’s photography has involved architecture, aerials, landscapes, and studio product shots; he’s made everything from a label for Geary’s Pale Ale to photo-murals fifty feet wide. He taught book design at the Center for Creative Imaging and at Maine Media Workshops, and was a guest instructor at RIT.

These days Bruce is best known for his work with W. A. Dwiggins: his massive 500-page biography of “WAD” was published in 2017 to great acclaim, and his new edition of Dwiggins’ Athalinthia just appeared this year.

The new Athalinthia Stories is a book is filled with delights. It comes straight from the imagination and heart of W. A. Dwiggins, one of the great visual artists of the 20th century. It contains wise and witty stories written by Dwiggins, accompanied by more than a hundred of his fanciful illustrations. He tried to get this published in 1928, but never succeeded. Now, nearly 100 years you can have one produced by Bruce Kennett. Get your copy at the Museum of Printing.

Please join us for this Fireside Chat that explores the interesting twists and turns Bruce has followed over the years.