Jack Kelly writer
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ARION PRESS: MORE THAN WORDS
(The Robb Report, July 2006)
Andrew Hoyem believes that when books are concerned,
style can enhance substance—that riveting tales and
profound truths benefit from refined presentations. At Arion
Press, his San Francisco publishing house, he employs the
centuries-old letterpress method of printing because it
imparts a three-dimensional quality to the ink, and the cotton
paper that he prefers feels more like a fine shirt than the
product of wood pulp. The appeal of a freshly printed Arion
Press book extends to its aroma, which mingles the scents of
ink, goatskin, and rag paper. “The sensual aspects of the
books enhance our customers’ pleasure in owning them,”
Hoyem says. “Our goal is not craftsmanship for its own sake,
but a perfect amalgam of design and execution that honors
the text and, in the end, creates a book that aspires to art.”
Arion Press releases include Einstein’s The Theory of
Relativity, Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, and a
vellum-bound copy of the U.S. Constitution. Press runs rarely
exceed 400 copies, many of which are claimed by
subscribers who purchase the two or three publications that
Arion releases annually. Prices range from $450 for Richard
Brautigan’s novel Trout Fishing in America to $16,500 for
one of the 40 copies of Poems of W.B. Yeats, which includes
illustrations by Richard Diebenkorn and a collection of signed
etchings by the artist. This summer, Arion will mark the 300th
anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin, founding father
and professional printer, with a $600 edition of his
autobiography.
Hoyem first became involved with book printing in 1961,
when, after having served in the Navy, he joined Auerhahn
Press in San Francisco. He intended to work for six months
before enrolling in graduate school, but he never left the
profession. “I became fascinated by the way in which imagery
and written text could be brought together,” says the 71-year-
old Hoyem. In 1964, printers Edwin and Robert Grabhorn
hired him and made him a partner in the Grabhorn-Hoyem
printing company. (Hoyem changed its name to Arion Press
one year after Robert’s death in 1973.) Grabhorn-Hoyem
and Auerhahn were among several small presses in San
Francisco that published the writings of Lawrence
Ferlinghetti, Jack Kerouac, and other Beat Generation
talents whom mainstream publishers in New York ignored. “If
you published avant-garde literature and thought that you
would make money, you were crazy,” he recalls. “So, we did it
for art’s sake.”
Later Hoyem began republishing classics, including an
edition of Moby-Dick in 1979. He set the text by hand,
illustrated the book with engravings by Barry Moser, printed it
on handmade paper, and bound it in leather. Though it cost
$1,000, which was considered an exorbitant price at the time,
all 250 copies sold quickly. Today, a collector might pay five
times that amount for an Arion Press Moby-Dick. Arion has
since released editions of Ulysses, Paradise Lost, and the
Bible, and Hoyem plans to publish a version of Don Quixote
based on Edith Grossman’s recent translation. “I choose
what I want to publish,” he says, “giving myself the freedom to
pick books that mean a lot to me.
# # #
(The Robb Report, July 2006)
Andrew Hoyem believes that when books are concerned,
style can enhance substance—that riveting tales and
profound truths benefit from refined presentations. At Arion
Press, his San Francisco publishing house, he employs the
centuries-old letterpress method of printing because it
imparts a three-dimensional quality to the ink, and the cotton
paper that he prefers feels more like a fine shirt than the
product of wood pulp. The appeal of a freshly printed Arion
Press book extends to its aroma, which mingles the scents of
ink, goatskin, and rag paper. “The sensual aspects of the
books enhance our customers’ pleasure in owning them,”
Hoyem says. “Our goal is not craftsmanship for its own sake,
but a perfect amalgam of design and execution that honors
the text and, in the end, creates a book that aspires to art.”
Arion Press releases include Einstein’s The Theory of
Relativity, Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, and a
vellum-bound copy of the U.S. Constitution. Press runs rarely
exceed 400 copies, many of which are claimed by
subscribers who purchase the two or three publications that
Arion releases annually. Prices range from $450 for Richard
Brautigan’s novel Trout Fishing in America to $16,500 for
one of the 40 copies of Poems of W.B. Yeats, which includes
illustrations by Richard Diebenkorn and a collection of signed
etchings by the artist. This summer, Arion will mark the 300th
anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin, founding father
and professional printer, with a $600 edition of his
autobiography.
Hoyem first became involved with book printing in 1961,
when, after having served in the Navy, he joined Auerhahn
Press in San Francisco. He intended to work for six months
before enrolling in graduate school, but he never left the
profession. “I became fascinated by the way in which imagery
and written text could be brought together,” says the 71-year-
old Hoyem. In 1964, printers Edwin and Robert Grabhorn
hired him and made him a partner in the Grabhorn-Hoyem
printing company. (Hoyem changed its name to Arion Press
one year after Robert’s death in 1973.) Grabhorn-Hoyem
and Auerhahn were among several small presses in San
Francisco that published the writings of Lawrence
Ferlinghetti, Jack Kerouac, and other Beat Generation
talents whom mainstream publishers in New York ignored. “If
you published avant-garde literature and thought that you
would make money, you were crazy,” he recalls. “So, we did it
for art’s sake.”
Later Hoyem began republishing classics, including an
edition of Moby-Dick in 1979. He set the text by hand,
illustrated the book with engravings by Barry Moser, printed it
on handmade paper, and bound it in leather. Though it cost
$1,000, which was considered an exorbitant price at the time,
all 250 copies sold quickly. Today, a collector might pay five
times that amount for an Arion Press Moby-Dick. Arion has
since released editions of Ulysses, Paradise Lost, and the
Bible, and Hoyem plans to publish a version of Don Quixote
based on Edith Grossman’s recent translation. “I choose
what I want to publish,” he says, “giving myself the freedom to
pick books that mean a lot to me.
# # #