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Letterpress Exhibits to Open Art Gallery’s 2016 Calendar

"Los Signos Del Zodiaco", published by Juan Pascoe's press Taller Martín Pesacdor, will be on display.

"Los Signos Del Zodiaco", published by Juan Pascoe's press Taller Martín Pesacdor, will be on display.

OMAHA – Two concurrent art exhibits will celebrate the 100th anniversary of Harry Duncan’s birth – a nationally recognized letterpress printer and poet who taught at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO).

Harry DuncanFrom Friday, Jan. 15, 2016 through Feb. 11, 2016, the UNO Art Gallery will showcase Duncan’s influence in poetry publishing and letterpress book typography. Books and broadsides by publishing presses founded by students and apprentices of Harry Duncan will be on view.

At the same time, the UNO Criss Library will display the work of Duncan’s UNO students in the library’s Osborne Family Gallery.

An opening reception is set for Jan. 15, 2016 from 4:30 – 6:30 p.m. in the Weber Fine Arts Building’s lobby. Visitors are encouraged to visit the library gallery before the reception, as the library closes at 5 p.m. that evening.

Harry Duncan taught at UNO from 1972-1985, and published approximately 135 books over the span of his career. In 1982, Newsweek magazine wrote that Duncan had come to be considered “the father of the post-World War II private-press movement.”

A collection of Juan Pascoe’s hand-printed broadsides and books will highlight the Art Gallery’s exhibit. Pascoe worked with Harry Duncan in West Branch, Iowa, in the early 1970s before Duncan moved to Omaha. Today he is heralded as the finest hand printer in Mexico. A video showing his work and workshop will be on view with his printed works.

Books by other printers will also be on display, including K.K. Merker, Kay Amert, Doyle Moore, Allan Kornblum, Neil Shaver, Denise Brady and others.

This exhibit will also serve as the publication event for “All Along the Fence,” an unbound portfolio of poems edited and organized by Denise Brady and Harry’s son Guy Duncan, in tribute to Harry’s work.

In addition to the exhibits, two presentations are planned:

-Aldus in Omaha, a lecture by Michael Peich about Duncan’s classical typography.

Thursday, January 21, 7 p.m., Criss Library

-All Along the Fence, a poetry reading and letterpress roundtable.

Thursday, January 28, 7 p.m., Art Gallery

Related Links:

Art Gallery Hours & Other Information

Learn More About Criss Library

Art Gallery's Fall Calendar Closes with Student Artwork

For questions or media requests, please contact:

Sam Petto, UNO Media Relations Coordinator

402.554.2704 | unonews@unomaha.edu

or

Charley Reed, UNO Associate Director of Media Relations

402.554.2129 | unonews@unomaha.edu

About the University of Nebraska at Omaha

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