Internationally renowned handpress printer and book designer Richard-Gabriel Price Rummonds passed away on 8/23/24.
He was 93.
Rummonds was born in Long Beach, California, on April 26, 1931 to Newton Price Rummonds and Geraldine Westenhaver Rummonds, and died on August 23, 2024, in Bainbridge Island, Washington, where he had resided in recent years. He is survived by his brother William Lee (Barbara) Rummonds of Santa Rosa, California.
Rummonds, an openly gay man, was widely acknowledged as among a small group of the world’s pre-eminent handpress printers of the late twentieth century. For almost twenty-five years, using the imprints of Plain Wrapper Press and Ex Ophidia Press, he printed and published illustrated limited editions of contemporary literature on iron handpresses, primarily in Verona, Italy, and Cottondale, Alabama.
Over those decades, during which his reputation only grew, Rummonds worked with the world’s leading authors to design and print exquisite handmade, fine press books – stunning works of art that often included original sculptures and artwork on the covers of each published work. At Plain Wrapper Press, Rummonds’ stable of authors included Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, John Cheever, C. P. Cavafy, and Anthony Burgess, among other literary luminaries. Before his book publishing efforts blossomed to world acclaim, Rummonds variously served as a Trappist monk in Argentina, a designer for Tiffany & Co., a book designer for Alfred A. Knopf, and an archivist at the Vatican.
Rummonds had several exhibitions of his work, including ones in Rome, New York, San Francisco and Verona, culminating with a major retrospective exhibition held at the Biblioteca di Via Senato in Milan, Italy, in 1999. He was appointed founding director of the MFA in the Book Arts Program at the University of Alabama in 1984.
In the mid-1980s, Rummonds’ papers were purchased by The NY Public Library Special Collections, and more recently also by University of Utah Special Collections.
Rummonds is the author of several books, including works of short fiction and poetry, plays, and a memoir. These include two classics in the field of printing history: Printing on the Iron Handpress (Oak Knoll Press & The British Library, 1998) and Nineteenth-Century Printing Practices and the Iron Handpress (Oak Knoll Press & The British Library, 2004). His memoir, Fantasies & Hard Knocks: My Life as a Printer (Ex Ophidia Press, 2015), includes dozens of Rummonds’ favorite recipes.
In lieu of flowers, please direct donations to Island Volunteer Caregivers.
Contact:
Bruce Bond
bruce@vertumni.com
C: (206) 484 4028