Walter Hamady

Walter Hamady (born September 13, 1940) or, in full, Walter Samuel Haatoum Hamady, is an American artist, book designer, papermaker, poet and teacher. He is especially known for his innovative efforts in letterpress printing, bookbinding, and papermaking. In the mid-1960s, he founded The Perishable Press Limited and the Shadwell Papermill, and soon after joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he taught for more than thirty years.

Early years

Hamady's father was of Lebanese descent; his mother was an Iowa-born physician whose field was pediatrics. His parents' marriage fell apart during Hamady's childhood, resulting in his being raised by his mother, with the support of his paternal grandfather (his beloved "Jidu" (grandfather)), Ralph Haatoum Hamady, whom Hamady has described as "a wonderful man [from Baakline, Lebanon] who came to America as a teenager in 1907".

After high school, Hamady studied art at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan (BFA 1964), and at nearby Cranbrook Academy of Art (MFA 1966). While still an undergraduate, concurrent with a visit to his relatives in Iowa City, Iowa, he was introduced to book artist Harry Duncan, who was a teacher at the time at the University of Iowa (Iowa City), and an important contributor to the revival of interest in letterpress printing. During that visit, Hamady saw for the first time a finely printed handmade book, in the tradition of the Kelmscott Press of William Morris, and the Private Press Movement. Soon after, in Detroit in 1964, while still an undergraduate, he founded his own press, which he named The Perishable Press Limited. And then, as a graduate student at Cranbrook, he launched the Shadwell Papermill, by which he contributed to the experimental use of handmade papers.

Teaching

In 1966, Hamady became a member of the art faculty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where for over thirty years he taught papermaking, letterpress printing, and bookbinding. Using the Perishable Press trade name, he has designed and printed more than 130 limited edition books by such well-known writers as Paul Blackburn, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan (the Black Mountain poets), Loren Eiseley, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Kenneth Bernard, Clarence Major, Allen Ginsberg, Denise Levertov, W.S. Merwin, Howard Nemerov, Toby Olson, Richard Wiley, Joel Oppenheimer, Reeve Lindbergh, Jonathan Williams, William Stafford, Bobby Byrd and Paul Auster. In the process, he has also collaborated with a number of visual artists (who have illustrated his books), among them John Wilde, Henrik Drescher, David McLimans, Patrick Flynn, Jim Lee, Peter Sis, Margaret Sunday, Lane Hall, and Jack Beal. While admired for his artist's books, he is equally or even more widely admired for his achievements as a teacher.

Gabberjabbs

It is often acknowledged that Hamady's artist's books have become even more extraordinary since 1973, when he embarked on a curious series he calls The Interminable Gabberjabbs. In these effusive, almost boundless books, which are now widely collected, he made strange, satirical use of disturbing Surrealist strategies like free association, found imagery, and the radical juxtaposition of advertising ephemera. Throughout that series (there are eight gabberjabbs), he pokes fun at nearly everything, including his own artistic seriousness, the snobbery of those who claim to be scholars, and the widespread, unchallenged assumption that traditional page layout and, particularly, typography, are governed by immutable rules.

Collage and assemblage

For most of his professional life, Hamady has also been a collage artist. Although he has made frequent use of drawing and photography in illustrating his books, his involvement with collage has grown to include the construction of box-like assemblages of metal type, altered images, and fragments of other ephemera from the history of printing.

Collections

Hamady’s handmade books and other works are in the collections of numerous libraries, museums and art centers in the United States and in other countries. These include, to name a few, the British Museum, Harvard University, National Gallery of Art, Newberry Library, Oxford University, Yale University, Cleveland Institute of Art, Getty Center, Grolier Club (New York), Lenin Library (Moscow), Library of Congress, Royal Library (Stockholm, Sweden), Walker Art Center, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Awards

Over the years, Hamady has received numerous awards in recognition of his work. For example, on ten occasions (and in one case, twice in a single year), his books have been selected by the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) for their annual exhibition called Fifty Books of the Year. He was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 1969, has received three artist's research grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and, in 2006, was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Crafts Council.

Publications

* ‘’Interminable Gabberjabbs’’ (Mt. Horeb, WI, 1973).
* ‘’Hunkering in Wisconsin: Another Interminable Gaggerblabb’’ (Mt. Horeb, WI, 1974).
* ‘’Thumbnailing the Hilex / Gabberjabb Number 3’’ (Mt. Horeb, WI, 1974).
* ‘’The Interminable Gabberjabb Volume One (&) Number Four’’ (Mt. Horeb, WI, 1975).
* ‘’For the Hundredth Time Gabberjabb Number Five’’ (Mt. Horeb, WI, 1981).
* ‘’Hand Papermaking: Being a Book of Qualified Suspicions Book 102’’ (Mt. Horeb, WI, 1982).
* ‘’Two Decades of Hamady and the Perishable Press Limited’’ (St. Louis, MO, 1984).
* ‘’Neopostmodrinism or Dieser Rasen ist kein Hundeklo or Gabberjabb Number 6’’ (Mt. Horeb, WI, 1988).
* ‘’Traveling or NeoPostModrinPreMortemism or Dieser Rasen ist kein Hundeklo (II) or Interminable Gabberjabb Number Seven’’ (Mt. Horeb, WI, 1996).
* ‘’Hunkering, The Last Gabberjabb’’ (Mt. Horeb, WI, 2006).

References

* M. Lydon: “The Trojan Horse of Art: Walter Hamady, The Perishable Press Limited and Gabberjabbs 1-6" in "Visible Language" (Providence, RI), Vol 29 Nos 2-3 (Spring 1991), pp. 150-172.
* R. R. Behrens: "The Gift of Gabberjabbs" in "Print" (New York, NY), Vol 51 No 1 (January/February 1997), pp. 64-71.
* R. R. Behrens: “What Walter [Hedgehog] Hamady Knows” in "Juxtamorphing Space: Works by Walter S.H. Hamady" (exhibition catalog essay, 2005).