Letterpress Printing as Community Building with Amos Kennedy

Join printmaker, book artist, and provocateur Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. for special event with Amos Kennedy on using letterpress printing to build community. The talk coincides with BIMA’s exhibition of Kennedy’s Rosa Parks Series, on view in the Orientation Gallery from December 7, 2022 – February 28, 2023.

ABOUT AMOS KENNEDY

Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. is an American printer, book artist and papermaker best known for social and political commentary, particularly in printed posters. From an early age, Kennedy was interested in letters and books and studied calligraphy for several years. At the age of 40, Kennedy visited Colonial Williamsburg, a Virginia living history museum, and was mesmerized by an 18th-century print shop and book bindery demonstration. The incident so influenced that he studied printing at a community-based letterpress shop in Chicago and, within a year quit his AT&T systems analyst job, which he had held for nearly two decades, to continue printmaking studies.

Kennedy articulated his fascination with letterpress printing in one interview: “… I believe it was the capability of making multiples. Multiples of text are important to me. They allow for distribution.”

He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studied under legendary book designer Walter Hamady, and earned an MFA in 1997. He later taught graphic design at the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts at Indiana University.