Читать книгу Will Bradley, His Chap Book. An account, in the words of the dean of American typographers, of his graphic arts adventures онлайн

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He was a native, corn-fed American in another way, too. It was a time when Kelmscott House had set a pattern, and the only pious ambition for a serious typographic designer was to produce meticulous limited editions for equally limited collectors. Bradley may have had some such idea in mind when he started the Wayside Press, but thank God it didn’t work. There was a lusty, democratic ambition in that slight body, and it thrilled him to speak to thousands, even millions, instead of just scores. The turbulent current of American commercial and industrial life appealed to him more than any exquisite backwater.

So he spread his work over magazines, newspapers, the advertising of such houses as the Strathmore Paper Company, his own lively but not limited publications, even the movies. So he enormously enriched our arts; and he smashed more false fronts and took more liberties—successfully—than anyone has done before or since.

Now his retirement has lasted almost as long as his active career. His work has been absorbed into our culture so completely that many of the young men cavorting brilliantly in his wake today are scarcely aware of their debt to him—the pioneer and pacemaker. They should be—he is aware of them: he closes here with chuckling praises of the fine, free-handed job they are doing. There was always a giant’s spirit in this powerful little man, and it’s as strong and generous now as it ever was. My memory is long enough that I can say for all these latecomers, “Thank you no end for everything, Will Bradley.”