Ottmar Mergenthaler and the Linotype, 1886, 1966-1971

"Graphic Communications Through the Ages" commemorates significant milestones in the history of communications technologies: the development of paper and character forms, typography design, and printing. The paintings were commissioned in 1966 by the Kimberly-Clark Corporation of Neenah, Wisconsin, who employed three internationally-known historical illustrators to produce the series: Robert A. Thom (1915-1979), Douglas M. Parrish (1922-2001), and George I. Parrish, Jr.(1930-1992).

Each of the 24 original paintings is in the medium of oil on masonite and range in size from 22 x 30 inches (Ives) to 36 x 48 inches (Papyrus, Gutenberg). Each painting is presented in a frame especially created for it by the House of Heydenruk, New York, NY.

The paintings illustrate the history methods for communicating the written word developed between 950 B.C. and the early twentieth century. Specific events, people, and technologies are meant to be viewed in a chronological order, and titled Papyrus and Pictography (950-685 B.C.); the Roman Alphabet (506 B.C.); Charlemagne and the Monastic Scribes (800 A.D.); Chinese Block Printing (868 A.D.); Papermaking at Fabriano, Italy (1293); Johann Gutenberg and Movable Type (1455); Nicholas Jenson (1470); Aldus Mantius (1495); Geofroy Tory and Simon de Colines (1525); William Shakespeare’s First Folio (1623); John Peter Zenger (1735); Benjamin Franklin (1758); Alois Senefelder and Lithography (1796); William Blake (1800); Fourdrinier and the Papermaking Machine (1803); Friederich Koenig and the Cylindrical Press (1812); Lord Stanhope and Stereotyping (1802); George P. Gordon and the Platen Press (1858); Frederic Ives and the Half-Tone Process (1878); Ottmar Mergenthaler and the Linotype (1886); William Morris (1891); Tolbert Lanston and the Monotype (1897); Ira Rubel and the Offset Press (1904); and Frederic W. Goudy (1943).