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Vancouver 1949-62 Montreal New York & New Haven Vancouver Redux Biography News |
| In 1962 Robert received a Canada Council grant, which came with enough money to spend a year travelling with his family and visiting type foundries, printers, papermakers and anyone else he could think of. During the summer of 1963, while in Spain, Robert heard that McGill had started a university press, and wrote offering his services as a book designer. The Director had heard of him, and the Manager was enthusiastic, and he ended up with the job and what would become the most creative decade of his life.
While the bulk of Robert's design work for the university was, naturally, books of a scholarly nature, opportunities for special publications also came along; a few of these are listed at right, with further details. The first of these was the Lande bibliography of Canadiana, the project that also led to the creation of the Redpath Press. Being a private press, it didn't do any commercial work.
"Shortly after I arrived at McGill, Hugh Michaelson, a former student of mine from the Vancouver Art School (see here for more details), called one day from the Toronto Star and said they were closing down their printing shop and had two Heidelberg cylinder presses for sale cheap. Did I know anyone who might want them. In a flash of intuition I though 'Fantastic, this could get the Lande book printed letterpress.' I had been worrying about this because there was only one good letterpress printing shop in Canada that I would trust with the job - Morriss Printing out in Victoria. But he only had Miehle Verticals, and they were too small a sheet size to do the job. This Heidelberg could solve our problem and we could print the book right here in Montreal.
"The Director and Manager of McGill University Press both thought it possible to set up a private press, as we didn't need a lot of peripheral equipment, just a pressman to run that beautiful Heidelberg. And I knew just the person - Ib Kristensen in Vancouver-who had printed two fine editions already for me at my private press there. Richard Pennington, the University Librarian, thought it a good idea too, as he was crazy about printing. He found us the basement of Redpath Hall, which adjoins the library, and even donated fonts of all of Oldrich Menhart's typefaces that the library purchased from Grafotechna Type Foundry in Prague. Hugh expedited the sale and shipment of the press. Ib arrived in time to supervise everything, and we were up and running very quickly.
"The real impetus to the press, however, came from another former Vancouver student of mine, Bev Leech. He had driven to Montreal (where he had relatives) in a car loaded with California type cases in the winter of 1963 with the intention of setting up a printing shop in there. Since we were setting up the Redpath press all of sudden, I suggested he also set up his shop there, as he had more equipment than we did. He had Stephenson & Blake's original Caslon, for example, and lots of interesting wood type faces. And he had a 12 x 18 platen press, without which a printshop can't function since you need it to print all the jobs that can't be printed on a cylinder press. Extracted from Printing - A Lifelong Addiction (vol 2a - Montreal). Reprinted with permission. In addition to Robert's work at the university he continued to do a wide range of freelance work, including all of the printed material for the Canadian Pavilion at Expo '67, and participating in a redesign the Montreal Star. In the early '70s he left McGill and started a phototypesetting business, setting a wide variety of periodicals and books. In 1974 he finally decamped for the publishing capital, New York City. Return to Robert Reid Printing page. HEAVENLY MONKEY |
 BOOK LINKS: The Lande Bibliography of Canadiana Anatomy of the Brain and Nerves Portrait of a Period The Salmon The History of Medicine in Quebec The Banknotes & Currencies of America The Kings Have Donned Their Final Mask   |