PARALLEL READING: Book Design and California Modernism

Saturday, September 13, 2025
3:30 PM 6:00 PM

William Andrews Clark Memorial Library 2520 Cimarron St. Los Angeles, CA 90018 (map)

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This example of California modern fine press is a detail from *Ghost in the Underblows,* Alfred Young Fisher, 1940, printed by Ward Ritchie and designed by Alvin Lustig from typographic elements. Lustig had studied with Frank Lloyd Wright and was inspired by his designs.

The William Andrews Clark Library and the MAK Center for Art and Architecture are pleased to present PARALLEL READING: Book Design and California Modernism with Johanna Drucker (Distinguished Research Professor of Information Studies, UCLA), a contributor to the MAK Center's exhibition Reading Room.

In the 1920s and 1930s modernism developed in Los Angeles under the influence of many British and European art movements and individuals. This sensibility is evidence in architecture, film, music, and the graphic arts, including book design. California Fine Press is one realm in which the conspicuous influence of British Arts and Crafts, French Art Nouveau, Viennese Secessionism and other groups is adopted and transformed. Among the key figures responsible for this activity in Los Angeles, Ward Ritchie was influential for the lessons learned from studying in Paris with the outstanding printmaker/designer François-Louis Schmied. Other contributions came from the Humanist Revival in graphic design and from the Book Beautiful aesthetic. Interesting parallels and striking contrasts can be drawn between the emerging “modernisms” around Ritchie and his circle and that of Rudolph Schindler and his networks. This presentation focuses on books in the William Andrews Clark Jr. Library’s Press collections to call attention to the ways reading style and design features provides insight into these cultural lineages.

3:30 PM – Doors Open
4:00 PM – Welcome remarks by Head Librarian Derek Christian Quezada Meneses
4:05 PM – Introduction to Reading Room by co-curator Robert J. Kett
4:15 PM – Overview presentation by Curator Johanna Drucker
4:45–6:00 PM – Reception and exhibit viewing

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JOhanna Drucker

Johanna Drucker is Breslauer and Distinguished Professor Emerita, Department of Information Studies, UCLA. She is internationally known for her work in the history of writing, experimental typography, visual poetry, and artists’ books as well as information visualization and digital humanities. Her own limited edition artist’s books are widely represented in special collections in libraries and universities in North America. Her most recent publications include Inventing the Alphabet (University of Chicago, 2022), Iliazd: Metabiography of a Modernist (Hopkins University, 2023) and Affluvia: The toxic off-gassing of affluent culture (Bridge Publications, 2025). She had a retrospective exhibit of her visual art, Graphic Animism, in Los Angeles in 2025.

UCLA WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY

The UCLA William Andrews Clark Memorial Library is a rare book and manuscript library that is open to all researchers who wish to conduct research with its holdings. The Library specializes in the study of England and Western Europe from the Tudor period through the long eighteenth century and from the mid-Victorian to late Edwardian periods, with a focus on Oscar Wilde and his circle. Other collection strengths include modern book arts; fine printing and the history of the book; and Montana and the West. The Library is located in a 1926 Beaux Arts building, listed as Los Angeles City Historic-Cultural Monument #123, and situated on five landscaped acres in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles.

This exhibition is supported in part by an arts grant from the City of West Hollywood.
Printing support generously provided by Typecraft.
Furniture for Reading courtesy of Karma.