Saturday, May 22, 2010

Types of Wood

Visited the Hamilton Wood Type Museum last weekend up in Two Rivers. What a revelation. A plethora of fonts crafted in wood -- an enormous collection, vast in size and variety. This display represents the slightest, most fleeting hint of the impressive quantities on view. Plus great vintage linotype machines and other old-school tools dating to Hamilton's 19th-century origins as an impressive printing concern.

The Hamilton Wood Type Museum joins the Beauborg and the old Jeu de Paume in Paris, the Louisiana Museum outside Kobenhavn, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Firenze's Uffizi, Amsterdam's Van Gogh, L.A.'s Getty, Milwaukee Art Museum and a handful of others on my short list of favorite museums.