About Graham Williams

Ink and paper are in my blood, both lines of my forefathers were ‘in the print’. My parents met surrounded by it and one of my great grandfathers was chief compositor in Dr. Johnson’s house off Fleet Street. So naturally I wasn’t going to have anything to do with it, I was going to go my own way. That way led me to books and art, designing for advertising and print and book publishing. That led to the marvels that wood engraving can produce, if printed properly. So I found my way to the Albion press that Walter Tracy leased to me in 1968, for a formal florin. That press, now mine, has been joined by others and the wondrous clutter that hand printers must have around them. The lowered woodblocks of Thomas Bewick need hand presswork to live and that is my principal interest.

The output of the press is not numerous, but for a number of years it produced my only income and much of that from ephemera. It has coexisted with life that placed other work in my path. But printing and texts have always been there and now, as before, is occupying most of my time. My hands love to make, to touch tools and materials and fashion them into something that I want to see and feel. Hand presses are the very best tools for printing from lowered woodblocks.